Stephen Langton : hero of Magna charta (1215 A.D.), septingentenary (700th anniversary), 1915 A.D.

STEPHEN LANGTON

HERO OF MAGNA CHARTA * -I

(1215 A.D.)
Septingentenary (jooth Anniversary}^ 1915 A.D.

BV

REV. J. R. LEEMING, B.A.

VICAR, CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, ROCHDALE

ILon&on
; , SKEFFINGTON

SON

34 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. _

PUBLISHERS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KJNG ^ V .'• "' t -• 1.
1915 /f&*

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PRINTED m GREAT BRITAIN BY
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

PREFACE

THE National Biography's article on Stephen
Langton says, " a full biography of him has yet to
be written, we have only sketches of his life as
yet." The author does not, for a moment, imagine
that the following pages contain all that is needed,
but he humbly hopes that their perusal will do
something towards quickening an interest in the
life and times of one who is apparently so little
known and yet who loomed so large in the fight
for political and ecclesiastical freedom in the Middle
Ages.

J. R. LEEMING.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Survey —

Britannica Encyclopaedia.

CHAMBERS'S Encyclopaedia.

Catholic Encyclopaedia.

CUTT'S Dictionary of Church of England.

ROGER OF WENDOVER : Flowers of History.

Literary History —

WRIGHT : Biographia Britannica Literaria.

Social History —

BATESON, Miss : Medieval England.
Cox, J. C, LL.D. : Canterbury City.

Constitutional History of the Church —
WILKIN'S Concilia.
HOOK : Ecclesiastical Biography.
FlELDEN : Short Constitutional History.
MEDLEY : English Constitutional History.
STUBBS : Lectures in Early Church History.

Development of Constitutional History —
THOMSON : Essay on Magna Charta.
STUBBS : Early Plantagenets.
KNIGHT : Old Antiquities.
MCKECHNIE : Magna Charta.
Miss NORGATE : John Lackland.

Ecclesiastical History —

GEE AND HARDY : Documents Illustrative of English

Church History.

STEPHENS, W. R. W. : English Church History.
PERRY, CANON G. C. : English Church History.
CUTTS, DR. : Turning Points of Church History.

viii BIBLIOGRAPHY

GASQUET, CARDINAL : Henry III and the Church.
LANE, C. A. : English Church History.
Canterbury and York Society (Registers).
CUTTS : Parish Priest and People.
Historical Manuscripts Commission, vol. iv.
ISAACSON, F. W. : English Cardinals.
LUARD, H. R. : Flores Historiarium.

Political History —

ADAMS : Political History of England.

DAVIS, H. W. C. : England under Normans and Angevins.

FLETCHER, C. R. L. : Introduction to English History.

Biographical —

Dictionary of National Biography.
HOOK : Lives of the Archbishops.
CHAMBERS : Biographical Dictionary.

Constitutional History—
STUBBS : Select Charters.

Introduction to Rolls Series.

Constitutional History, vol. i.
SHIRLEY, W. W. : Letters of Henry III.

Incidental History—

SEIGNOBOS : History of Contemporary Civilization.
TOUT, T. F. : Empire and Papacy.

Advanced History of Great Britain.
HENDERSON : Historical Documents of the Middle Ages.
THATCHER AND SCHWILL : Europe in the Middle Ages.
LINGARD : History of England, vol. iii.
JERVIS AND HASSAL : Student's France.
HUME : Student's England.
MILLER : Medieval Rome.
FIRTH, C. : Oliver Cromwell.
ROBERTSON, CANON J. C. : Sketches of Church History.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE ARBITRARY POWER OF WILLIAM I . . . I
THE AWAKENING OF THE BARONAGE ... 3
INFLUENCE OF THE MONASTERIES .... 4

ARCHBISHOP HUBERT WALTER .... 5

PRINCE JOHN'S (LACKLAND) ACCESSION ... 7
"NOW I AM KING OF ENGLAND" IO

ANSELM'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME . . .11
CANDIDATES FOR THE VACANT ARCHBISHOPRIC . 13
INNOCENT III ....... 14

THE POWER OF INNOCENT . . . . -15

INNOCENT'S VIEWS ...... 16

THE CHARACTER OF INNOCENT . . . 1 8

INNOCENT'S NOMINEE FOR THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OF

CANTERBURY ...... 2O

STEPHEN LANGTON . . . . . .22

STATUS OF A CARDINAL BEFORE 1245 A'D- • • 24
A SPLENDID APPOINTMENT . . . . • 25

CONCERNING FOUR RINGS SENT BY POPE INNOCENT

TO KING JOHN ...... 28

x CONTENTS

PAOE

THE ANGRY KING . . . . . . 30

PAPAL (LAWLESS) USURPATIONS .... 32

THE INTERDICT ....... 33

EXILED ARCHBISHOP AND CANTERBURY MONKS . 36

GENERAL OBSERVANCE OF THE INTERDICT . . 37

LANGTON IN EXILE AT PONTIGNY «... 39
EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE KING . . . .41

THE BETTER SIDE OF JOHN'S CHARACTER . . 42

THE CONCILIATORY ARCHBISHOP .... 44

JOHN DEPOSED FROM HIS THRONE ... 46

PETER'S PENCE ....... 49

HUMILIATING SURRENDER OF JOHN ... 50

LANGTON'S ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND .... 52

THE BARONS STILL DISCONTENTED «... 55

HEROIC LEADER REQUIRED ..... 56

KING JOHN'S WISE ADVISERS . . . . 60

THE JUDICIOUS ARCHBISHOP ..... 6l

KING'S ATTEMPT TO WEAKEN THE INFLUENCE OF THE

BARONS AND CLERGY ..... 63

THE POPE'S AMBASSADORS ..... 65
GROWING DEMAND FOR CHARTER OF HENRY I . .68

JOHN'S ECCLESIASTICAL CHARTER, 1214 . . . 69

KING'S ATTEMPT TO PROPITIATE ARCHBISHOP LANGTON 71

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

MAGNA CHART A, 1215 . . . . . 76

TEXT OF MAGNA CHARTA WITH TRANSLATION . . 78
LANGTON, THE KING'S COMMISSIONER AT RUNNYMEDE 126
SOCIAL ARTICLES OF MAGNA CHARTA . . .130
POLITICAL ASPECT OF MAGNA CHARTA . . .132
EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE BARONS . . « J35
REVOCATION OF MAGNA CHARTA . . . -137
WILLIAM DE ALBINI ...... 140

ARCHBISHOP LANGTON'S REFUSAL TO EXCOMMUNICATE

THE BARONS ...... 141

ANARCHY ........ 143

DISINTEGRATION OF NATIONAL PARTY . . . 145

LOUIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE 147

DEATH OF KING JOHN ..... 149

HENRY Ill's ACCESSION . . . . -152

RISE OF PANDULPH . . . . . -154
ARCHBISHOP LANGTON'S RETURN FROM ROME . .156

THE CHARTER, LANGTON'S CHIEF OBJECT . .158

BISHOP HUGH OF LINCOLN . . . . . l6l

ROME'S DEMAND FOR PECUNIARY HELP . . .163

HEAVY BLOW TO ENGLISH FREEDOM . . .164

WHY WAS LANGTON NOT MADE A PAPAL LEGATE? . l66

ARCHBISHOP'S TREATMENT OF POPES' COMMANDS . 169

xii CONTENTS

THE FORGED DECRETALS . . . . .

LANGTON'S RESPECT FOR ROME . . . -

LANGTON : CHURCH REVIVALIST . . . .1'

DOMINICAN AND FRANCISCAN ORDERS OF MONKS . I'

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS . . . ll

LANGTON I CHURCH RESTORER AND BUILDER . . 1 1

LANGTON : CHURCH REFORMER . . . . l!

LANGTON: SCHOLAR AND DIVINE . . . . i8(

SYNOD OF OSENEY . . . . . .189

LANGTON : BANISHER OF STRANGE DOCTRINE . .196

LANGTON : SOCIAL REFORMER .... 20O

LANGTON : STATESMAN-ARCHBISHOP . . . 204

LANGTON : PATRIOT ...... 204

CONCLUSION . . . . . . .210

INDEX ........ 213

STEPHEN LANGTON

WHAT is the history centring around that great
statesman-archbishop, Stephen Langton, to whom,
more than to any other person, layman or clergy-
man, we are indebted for that famous deed, Magna
Charta, which granted and secured very important
liberties and privileges, not only to the Church of
England, but to every order of men in the king-
dom, i. e. to the barons, the clergy, and people
generally ?

The reign of John, which produced this great
Englishman, marks an important epoch in the
history of the English nation.

THE ARBITRARY POWER OF WILLIAM I

The Norman Conquest in the eleventh century
was a principal and fatal blow to the liberties of
Britain; for when William the First became sove-
reign, there were but few of the English nation left
in the possession of their original estates. As the
monarch's power was entirely arbitrary, the partial

2 STEPHEN LANGTON

laws of a foreign adventurer superseded those whi
had been instituted by the equity of Edward the
Confessor, and although repeated petitions for the
restoration of the liberties of England were made
to the Conqueror's successors, these liberties con-
tinued to fluctuate. " When the King was weak,
or in such circumstances as permitted him not to
fight, the barons tried to get the liberties of the
English restored, and the Prince, not knowing
what to do better, put them off with fair promises,
which he had no design to perform. But, under
able kings, who were in prosperity, the contest
was stifled, and the barons waited for a more
favourable opportunity to compass their ends."

However, a charter for these liberties was issued
by Henry the First, about the year noo A.D.,
wherein it is declared that the Church shall be
free, that heirs shall receive their possessions un-
redeemed, that evil customs shall be abolished,
and, in fine, relates the greater part of those privi-
leges which we shall see the subsequent act of King
John more securely confirmed.

Under the Anglo-Norman kings there had been
two different races dwelling upon the English soil,
speaking different languages, and possessing no
common interests; but during the reign of the
practically non-resident king Richard the First,
John's immediate predecessor, the Saxons and
Normans because fused into the English people.

STEPHEN LANGTON 3

THE AWAKENING OF THE BARONAGE

One illustration of this will suffice. In 1198
Richard the First, as usual, wanted money, and
had exhausted all the usual means of procuring it.
He accordingly directed Archbishop Hubert, Lang-
ton's immediate predecessor, to propose to the
assembled bishops and barons that they should
maintain for him, during his war, a force of 300
knights, to be paid a sum of 35. per day. To the
archbishop's amazement, for the first time for five
and thirty years, but for the second time in English
history, the demand was disputed. Again the
opposition was led by a bishop, as then by St.
Thomas, this time by St. Hugh. This great Hugh
of Lincoln, who had won the heart of Henry the
Second, Richard's father, and had treated him as
an equal, now acted on behalf of the nation to
which he had joined himself, for he declared that
he would rather go back to his old hermit's life
than lay fresh burdens on the tenants of the lands
in connection with his bishopric. Herbert, the
Bishop of Salisbury, followed Hugh's example.
The estates of the churches were not bound, they
said, to afford the King military service except
within the four seas; they would not furnish it
for foreign warfare. The opposition prevailed ; the
bishops had struck a chord which awoke the baron-
age. This body now, to a far greater extent than

STEPHEN LANGTON

before, consisted of men who had little interest in
Normandy, were far more English in sympathy, and
perhaps also in blood, than they had been under
Henry the Second.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE MONASTERIES
But the sympathy of the monasteries at this
time was rather in a foreign direction, for the effect
of the Norman Conquest in the matter of English
monasteries was peculiar and important. It owed
its character indirectly to the two powerful minds
that were at the head of the Church and State;
Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, saw in the
monasteries societies of degenerate Benedictines;
William the Conqueror, nests of anti-Norman feel-
ing. Lanfranc tried to reform the abuses by draw-
ing closer the rules of discipline ; William sought to
stifle the patriotic spirit by setting over them the
tools of his strong policy. For a long time the
English spirit in the monasteries maintained itself
against both tyranny and reform. They hated the
Norman invaders, but they had no inclination
towards Rome, under whose auspices the Norrnan
invasion had succeeded.

As the bishops and secular clergy opposed them-
selves to Roman centralisation, the monasteries
became colonies of Roman partisans.

So long as the Pope and the King were on
the same side, the monks and the nation were op-

;

STEPHEN LANGTON 5

posed to both alike ; when the Pope and the King
quarrelled, the nation sided with the King, the
monks with the Pope; hence, the monasteries be-
came more papal as the State became more national,
and the same series of events made them less English
without becoming more Norman, and more papal
without becoming more loyal. Matters had reached
this point in the latter years of Henry the Second,
John's father.

ARCHBISHOP HUBERT WALTER

Richard the First's (John's immediate prede-
cessor) character is illustrated in some minor
points by his course in the disputes respecting
the election to the archbishopric of Canterbury,
and of his attitude towards the Pope of Rome.
Richard would not suffer the laws of the land
to be over-ridden by a rescript from Rome. He
condescended to none of what St. Thomas of
Canterbury called his father's mousetraps, the
tricks by which that astute King managed to put
his adversaries in the wrong without committing
himself to a decided course. Richard forbade the
execution of the mandate of Pope Innocent, in-
stead of trying to elude it either by chicanery or
by bullying. Archbishop Hubert Walter's char-
acter has suffered a good deal from his connection
with Richard the First as the latter's chief adviser.

STEPHEN LANGTON

With the exception of St. Thomas, he was the
only primate since the Conquest who had been
chosen for any other reason than learning or sanctity ;
he was raised to the high position which he filled
simply for secular reasons. But it should be taken
into account that Hubert never enriched himself.
He was not, perhaps, the best conceivable minister
for Richard the First, but he was probably the
best, if not the only one, possible. He was a true
patriot, a man of honest purposes and pure life.
He was the most popular and in some respects the
greatest of the medieval statesmen, says Mr. H. W. C.
Davis, in England under the Angevins, p. 352, who
were rewarded with the primacy of the English
Church. Hubert Walter had been to John, as
Lanfranc to Rufus, a moderating and restraining
influence, respected though disliked, and he had
maintained intact the alliance and long friendship
between the English Crown and the national Church
which was the corner-stone of the Angevin power.

If we regard Hubert Walter as a bishop (and this
is necessary in order to bring out the work of his
successor, Stephen Langton) other considerations
come in. The exchequer of a Norman sovereign
could hardly be a good school of financial honesty,
much less of theological learning. Hubert was
sadly deficient in both the scholarship and the
doctrinal learning that became a bishop, and such
as his successor was endowed with; the state of

he

STEPHEN LANGTON 7

religion was extremely bad. There was the paralysis
of discipline in the Church itself. There can be
no reasonable doubt that the hands of the bishops
were tied by the sufferance of appeals to Rome,
contrary to the ancient custom of the realm. The
great prize of the monks' ambition, the government
of the Church, fell from their hands. The position
occupied from henceforth by the monks of Canter-
bury was void of all political importance, and their
action in the election of the primate was merely
nominal; but this did not prevent the Christ
Church, Canterbury, monks, from scheming — when
the opportunity presented itself, to regain the
privilege of electing to the archbishopric of Canter-
bury.

PRINCE JOHN'S (LACKLAND) ACCESSION

Prince John easily got himself accepted as king
in 1199 A.D. It is quite true that his elder brother,
Geoffrey, who had been killed at a tournament,
had left a son named Arthur, and many who had
become disgusted with John's government of
Ireland, together with his treachery and base in-
gratitude to his father and elder brother, were
prepared to proclaim Arthur as the next heir to
the Crown of England, but it was quite in accord-
ance with old English precedent, says Professor
Tout, that his uncle, who was a grown man, should

8 STEPHEN LANGTON

be preferred to him. Philip of France, ever anxious
to make mischief in the Angevin dominions, sup-
ported Arthur's cause; but Queen Eleanor, though
now very old, used all her influence against her
grandson, and in favour of her youngest son.

The better, however, to secure the voice of the
English nation on behalf of John, the friends whom
he had engaged to support his cause promised, in
his name, a restoration of those liberties the people
so earnestly desired : a confirmation of Henry the
First's Charter, and a renewal of the Anglo-Saxon
laws, as instituted by Edward the Confessor; and
these promises, made at the commencement of a new
reign, gave to the barons a stronger hope for their
performance than they had hitherto entertained.

The barons were also very desirous of removing
the cruel oppressions and restrictions of the Forest
Laws. Mr. Lewis, in his Historical Inquiry Con-
cerning Forests, says, " In those times, speaking of
their regulations as being contemporary with the
Feudal System, when a conqueror settled the
economy of a country which he had previously
vanquished, it behoved him, in order to secure his
new acquisition, to keep the natives of the country
(who were not his military tenants) in as humble
a condition as possible; and more especially to
restrain them from the use of arms ; and as nothing
could do this so effectually as a prohibition of
hunting and shooting, it became a matter of policy

STEPHEN LANGTON 9

to reserve this right to himself, or to those of his
capital feudatories (the greater barons), on whom
he thought proper to bestow it."

Under the colour of Forest Law, Matthew of
Westminster remarks of William the Conqueror
(F lores Historiarium), " that if men disabled a
wild beast, they were dispossessed and imprisoned,"
and in another place, " if it were a stag, a buck, or
a boar, they were deprived of their eyes." King
John, if we may believe the assertion of Matthew
Paris, made his interdict concerning the chase wider,
for he included the winged, as well as the four-footed
creation.

It is not, then, surprising that there should be a
strong desire on the part of the people capable of
expressing themselves for the passing of Magna
Charta, where it is enacted in Chapter LVI : "All
evil customs concerning Forests, Warrens, and
Foresters; Warreners, Sheriffs, and their Officers;
Rivers and their Keepers; shall forthwith be en-
quired into in each County, by twelve Knights of
the Shire, chosen by the most creditable persons in
the same County, and upon oath, and within forty
days after the said inquest, be utterly abolished, so
as never more to be restored."

In the year 1200 Philip of France acknowledged
John to be the rightful heir of his brother, and
made Arthur do homage to his uncle for the Duchy
of Bretagne.

io STEPHEN LANGTON

The English barons, who had already made a
demand for the privileges of Magna Charta, which
were not yet granted, in the year 1201, at Whitsun-
tide, May 13, refused to attend John into France
for the consummation of the Dauphin's marriage
to his niece, Blanche of Castile, until the liberties
they desired should be confirmed. The King, in
return, seized upon their castles, and with Isabella
of Angouleme, whom he had lately married, left
England for Paris, where Philip entertained them
in the most magnificent manner.

In 1203 Arthur was imprisoned at Rouen, and
by his uncle's orders he was murdered. By 1205
the whole of the Duchy of Normandy passed into
Philip's hands. During these events the barons
had remained passive.

Now I AM KING OF ENGLAND

When King John heard of the death of Arch-
bishop Hubert Walter, 1205, he exclaimed : " Now
I am King of England," and he invited the monks
of Canterbury Cathedral to elect the Bishop of
Norwich to the vacant archbishopric ; they refused,
saying that they had the right to choose their own
archbishop, and without waiting for the conge d'tlire,
i. e. leave to elect, and without any communication
from the King, a party consisting of the junior
monks, thinking to steal a march on the sovereign

STEPHEN LANGTON n

by a nocturnal and surreptitious election, secretly
appointed Reginald, the sub-prior of the monastery,
and sent him to Rome for the pallium, the distinc-
tive badge or vestment of an archbishop; and
which was regarded as an indisputable badge of
metropolitan authority, although not actually
essential to the validity of an archbishop's spiritual
functions. But why should the pall or pallium be
got from Rome at all ?

ANSELM'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROME

When Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1095
A.D., asked leave of William the Second to go to
Rome to receive this vestment from Urban, one of
the two popes reigning at the same time, the King
answered that he did not recognise either Urban
or his rival, Clement, as Pope, and refused Anselm
permission to leave the country. King Rufus,
when he said that " while he lived he would endure
no equal in his realm," practically confirmed the
Conqueror's attitude towards the See of Rome.
Even when Rufus, two years afterwards, acknow-
ledged Urban, he did not permit Anselm to go to
Rome for his pallium, but allowed him to receive
it, May 27, 1095, at Canterbury, from a papal
legate who had brought it from Rome. However,
this did not make the Church of England Roman
Catholic; it was still the national Church and

12 STEPHEN LANGTON

running on parallel lines, as part of the Catholic
Church of Christendom, with the Church of Rome.

When Henry the First, who, after the result of
the Investiture contest, which proved a victory for
neither party, but a check on both, was reconciled
to Anselm, he was only willing that the Pope should
exercise spiritual jurisdiction in England, and he
stipulated that no papal legate should enter this
country without special royal licence. This does
not support the statement so frequently made that
the English Church was, at this time, an integral
part of the Church of Rome.

Anselm's previous training had led him to uphold
ideas which sought to make the bishops of Rome
autocrats of a universal despotism. In such
a theory patriotism finds no place. No excuse
need be made for the irreligious King Rufus, nor
need we doubt the piety and conscientiousness of
Anselm, but as he attacked the ancient preroga-
tives of English kings, they did right to maintain
them. There was no justification for Anselm's
evidently strong desire to set up the authority of
an unacknowledged pontiff over that of his lawful
sovereign, and it was wrong of him to claim that
the declarations of a synod of Rome, 1079 A.D.,
which declared that any clergy who accepted lay
investiture should be excommunicated, could sup-
plant the ancient laws and customs of England.
It must be admitted, however, that Anselm's atti-

STEPHEN LANGTON 13

tude materially strengthened the central power of
the popes against which most of Europe, and espe-
cially our own country, during Stephen Langton's
occupancy of the Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury,
had afterwards to struggle for national indepen-
dence. This reference to one of Langton's rather
remote predecessors in the See of Canterbury will
enable us the more to realize the greatness of
the work which he undertook on behalf of his
country and its national Church.

CANDIDATES FOR THE VACANT ARCHBISHOPRIC

To return, Reginald, the nominee of the junior
monks, was not at all a fit man for the vacancy,
and soon showed this. So puffed up was he that,
as soon as he reached the Continent, he began to
assume the state of an archbishop, and could not
refrain from boasting of it to every one before
the election had been confirmed. His supporters,
ashamed at his conduct, and alarmed for the
consequences of their own intrigue, abandoned
him, and joined with the rest of the monks whom
the angry King compelled to elect the Bishop of
Norwich, his own nominee, to the vacant arch-
bishopric of Canterbury. Twelve of the monks of
Christ Church Cathedral were then sent to Rome
with a handsome present to oppose the claims of
their own sub-prior — Reginald — and bring back the
pallium for the Bishop of Norwich.

14 STEPHEN LANGTON

But in the election of the latter — John de Grey —
some right by which the suffragan, but diocesan,
bishops in the Province of Canterbury, claimed to
be consulted, had been neglected, and they, too,
sent an embassy to the Pope to guard their interests.

INNOCENT III

But who was this Pope? The answer to this
question will enable us to understand the severity
of the struggle and therefore the greatness of
Stephen Langton in resisting so influential and
powerful a potentate. He was of noble parentage
— educated at Rome, Bologna, and Paris. He had
a profound knowledge of scholastic philosophy, of
both canon and civil law. He was a jurist,
trained in the schools of Paris and Bologna. He
looked at everything from the jurist's point of view,
and endeavoured to reduce to a legal form and
basis all the claims of the papacy. He was not
personally ambitious, but fully persuaded that he
was acting in accordance with the best interests of
the Church and even with the plans of God in
everything that he did. He believed that the
government of the world was a theocracy, and that
he himself was the Vicar of God on earth. Thus
distinguished by birth, intellect, and attainments,
on his return to Rome he rose rapidly in the Church,
and, on the death of Pope Celestine the Third,

STEPHEN LANGTON 15

Jan. 8, 1198, on the very same day Cardinal-
deacon Lotario di Signi, though not even a priest,
was unanimously elected pope by the assembled
cardinals. He took the name of Innocent the
Third. On Feb. 21 he was ordained priest, and on
the 22nd consecrated bishop. Innocent was but
thirty-seven years old at the time, and the vigour
of youth, guided by a master mind, was soon
apparent in the policy of the papacy. The circum-
stances of the time being highly favourable to him,
he soon restored the prestige of the Holy See in
Italy.

THE POWER OF POPE INNOCENT III

The early death of Henry the Sixth (1197) had
left Germany divided between rival candidates for
the Crown. Henry's widow, Constance, seeing
different parts of the Empire falling under the sway
of the Pope, in despair acknowledged Innocent
the Third as overlord of the two Sicilies, and on
her death (1198) appointed him guardian of her
infant son Frederick. Thus in the first year of
his pontificate, Innocent had established himself
as the protector of the Italian nation against foreign
aggression, and had consolidated in the peninsula
a secure basis on which to build up that world-
power which was the characteristic feature of
Innocent's pontificate.

Other popes before him, from Gregory the Seventh

li i ,!

* f I ••;

1 6 STEPHEN LANGTON

onwards, had upheld the theory of the supremacy
of the spiritual over the temporal authority, with
various fortune, it was reserved for Innocent the
Third to make it a reality. How strong and
powerful this Pope was we know from the way in
which he forced potentates such as Philip Augustus,
King of France, to put away Agnes of Meran and
to restore to his Danish wife Ingleburga, whom he
had wrongfully divorced the day after marriage,
the title of queen, although its honours were enjoyed
in the retirement of a distant chateau ; how Alphonso
the Ninth of Leon, Sancho of Portugal, and Ladis-
laus of Poland, had to obey his commands in their
matrimonial concerns. Just as in the affairs of
the world at large, so also in those of the Church
itself, Innocent's authority exceeded that of all his
predecessors.

THE VIEWS OF INNOCENT III

When Hildebrand, who took the title of Gregory
the Seventh, had said that the papacy was as much
greater than any earthly power as the sun is than
the moon, now Innocent the Third carried out this
further by saying that, as the lesser light (the
moon) borrows of the greater light (the sun), so the
royal power is borrowed from the priestly power.
Under this Pope the independent jurisdiction of
metropolitans and bishops was greatly curtailed.

iacv

STEPHEN LANGTON 17

To prove the world-power of this Pope and of his
undisputed personal ascendancy, look at the twelfth
Lateran Council, 1215 A.D., which was attended by
the plenipotentiaries of the emperor, of kings and
princes, and by some 1,500 archbishops, bishops,
abbots, and other dignitaries. And all that this
great assembly virtually did was not to debate
but to listen and endorse the decretals read by
the Pope. His views on the papal supremacy are
best explained in his own words (Innocent III,
lib. ii. p. 209) : " The Lord left to Peter the govern-
ment not of the Church only but of the whole
world." To the Emperor of Constantinople, who
quoted i Pet. ii. 13-14 (" Submit yourselves
to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake;
whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto
governors, as unto them that are sent by him for
the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of
them that do well") to the contrary, he replied in
perfect good faith that the apostle's admonition
to obey the king as supreme was addressed to lay
folk and not to the clergy.

The more intelligent laymen of the time were not
convinced even when coerced. Innocent considered
heresy the deadliest of sins, and its extirpation as
the first of his duties. The Albigenses (France), on
whom this Pope's persecution chiefly fell, held
something like the doctrines of Manes — a religion
really made up by himself from a mixture of Christian

18 STEPHEN LANGTON

and heathen nations so that they could not properly
be considered as Christian at all. The Pope sent
two legates with the title of inquisitors to extirpate
the heresy. One of them, Castlenau, having be-
come odious by his severities, was murdered near
Toulouse, upon which Innocent addressed himself
to the faithful, exhorting them to fight strenuously
against the ministers of the old serpent, and promis-
ing them the kingdom of heaven as a reward. Tens
of thousands were slain, and their rich and beautiful
country turned into a desert. The chief leader of
the crusade in the south of France was Simon de
Montfort, father of that Earl Simon who is famous
in the history of England.

INNOCENT'S CHARACTER

But although we cannot think well of the doctrines
of the Albigenses, yet the treatment of these people
was so cruel and treacherous as to raise the strongest
feelings of anger and horror in all who read the
accounts of it. Very possibly Innocent was much
deceived by those who reported matters to him.

In spite of the latter persecution Professor Tout
(Empire and Papacy, p. 314) eulogises Innocent the
Third in the following words : " He was possessed
of a majestic and noble appearance, an unblemished
private character, popular manners, a disposition
prone to sudden fits of anger and melancholy, and

^rlv

STEPHEN LANGTON 19

a fierce and indomitable will. The many-sided
Pontiff had not less dear to his heart the spiritual
and intellectual than the political direction of the
universe. He had the utmost zeal for the extension
of the Kingdom of Christ. The affair of the Crusade,
to rouse the Christian world for the recovery of
Jerusalem, falling on deaf ears, was the bitterest
grief of his life. He was sympathetic and con-
siderate to great religious teachers, like Francis
and Dominic, from whose work he had the wisdom
to anticipate the revival of the inner life of the
Church. If not the greatest, he was the most
powerful of all the popes."

A better side also to Innocent's character is
gathered from the following (Chambers's Ency.,

P- I47)-

" It is from his letters and decretals alone that

the character of the age and the true significance
of the Church policy of this extraordinary man can
be fully understood. However earnestly men may
dissent from these views, no student of medieval
history will refuse to accept Dean Milman's verdict
on the career of this Pontiff that his high and
blameless, and, in some respects, wise and gentle
character, seems to approach more nearly than
any one of the whole succession of Roman bishops
to the ideal light of a supreme pontiff ; and that in
him, if ever, may seem to be realised the Church-
man's highest conception of a Vicar of Christ."

20 STEPHEN LANGTON

INNOCENT'S NOMINEE FOR THE ARCHBISHOPRIC OF
CANTERBURY

Something has already been said showing the
growing power of the Church of Rome as regards
the monasteries in England, as well as the attitude
of Anselm, and especially of this Pope concerning
his extraordinary ascendancy over both spiritual
and temporal princes, and yet, although, ultimately,
backed by England's king, we shall see how he was
braved and brooked effectively by Stephen Langton,
Archbishop of Canterbury.

From our brief account of Innocent the Third
we should naturally conclude that he was eager to
extend his influence in every direction, and, therefore,
would seize every opportunity for advancing his
own claims. When, then, Innocent was consulted
respecting the vacant archbishopric, he showed his
power by deciding, amidst the three conflicting
interests already mentioned, that Reginald the
sub-prior's election was irregular, as was clearly the
case, but then he declared the Bishop of Norwich's
election irregular also, because it had been made
before the irregularity of the previous one had been
decided by the competent tribunal, and, of course,
that competent tribunal or judge was himself, the
Pope.

Apart from the question of irregularity of ap-
pointment the Pope refused to accept either Reginald

STEPHEN LANGTON 21

the sub-prior, on the ground of inefficiency, or King
John's nominee, the Bishop of Norwich, who was a
mere politician, on the ground that kings ought
not to be concerned with the appointment of
spiritual persons. Then, after both candidates had
been set aside, the Pope called upon the proctors of
Canterbury Cathedral, who had full powers, to
elect Stephen Langton (his own nominee) to the
vacant archbishopric; but the clerical ambassadors
from Canterbury had sworn to accept no one but
King John's nominee; they, therefore, pleaded
their solemn oath, taken in the name of the Holy
Trinity, to which the Pope arrogantly replied that
his authority would supply all defects, and at once
absolved them; then they pleaded that the right
of electing the Archbishop of Canterbury was in
the cathedral chapter, not in them, and that King
John's consent was necessary ; whereupon the Pope
threatened them with excommunication. Finally,
with the exception of one bold man, Elias de Brant-
field, who still refused to concur, they yielded to
persecution and accepted the recommendation or
rather the command of Pope Innocent.

(Solus tamen ex omnibus magister Helyas de
Brantefeld, qui pro parte regis et episcopi Norwic-
ensis advenerat, noluit consentire. Caeteri autem
omnes cum hymno " Te Deum laudamus " electum
memoratum ad altare detulerunt.)

No doubt Stephen Langton was, at that time,

22 STEPHEN LANGTON

the most illustrious living churchman of English
birth, and a fitter man for the archbishopric of
Canterbury than either Reginald the sub-prior, or
the Bishop of Norwich, the justiciary or King's
chief minister.

STEPHEN LANGTON

But who was Stephen Langton ? He was neither
a monk nor a courtier. The date and place of his
birth are unknown, although one well-known author,
shortly to be referred to, definitely mentions his
birthplace. From which of the many Langtons in
England his family took its name there is no con-
clusive evidence to show. The anonymous writer
in the series Lives of the English Saints, published
in 1845, says that he "is known by the surname of
Langton from the place of his birth, Langton, near
Spilsby, but he produces no proof of the fact ; but
as there was a grant of Free Warren of this Langton
in the next reign (called humbellot Langton) to a
Langton, this may have given some support for the
anonymous writer's statement.

Since Stephen Langton became, early in his
career, a prebendary of York, and, since his brother
Simon (died 1245 A.D.) was elected, although
Innocent the Third would not confirm the election
to that See in 1215, we may suppose the family to
be of northern extraction.

STEPHEN LANGTON 23

Hook, in his Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. vi.
p. 538, says that Stephen Langton was born at
Langton, near Spilsby in Lincolnshire, and his
family, though not illustrious, was respectable, that
in addition to the offices mentioned in the next
paragraph he held the office of the Dean of Rheims.
In the Middle Ages it was not considered strange
for a cleric to hold many stipendiary dignified posts
at one and the same time.

It is certain that Langton studied at the Uni-
versity of Paris, became a doctor in the faculties of
arts and theology, and acquired a reputation for
learning and holiness which gained him a prebend
in the Cathedral Church of Paris and another
(already referred to) in that of York. The fact of
holding two appointments in different countries at
the same time illustrates to some extent the cosmo-
politan character of the Medieval Church. Because
of his great ability and learning Langton was
made Rector Scholarum (a position corresponding
to that of Vice-Chancellor of a university), i. e. the
real Principal of the University of Paris, then the
most famous school of theology in Europe, and to
which students flocked from every part of Europe.

The University of Paris was, in the thirteenth
century, the largest school in Europe. More than
20,000 students came there from all countries. It
has given to Europe the outline of superior in-
struction. The English universities, Oxford and

24 STEPHEN LANGTON

Cambridge, have been copied from it; and when
the German princes wanted to have schools in their
states, all founded universities after the model of
that in Paris.

But Hook says it is more than doubtful whether
there was, at any time, any Chancellor of the
University as distinguished from the Chancellor of
the Church of Paris.

It is probable, however, that Langton exercised
some of the powers which afterwards developed
upon the Chancellor, for it is expressly stated by
the older writers who mention his name, that he
presided over and governed the schools of Paris.
However, Langton continued to live in Paris and
to lecture there till 1206 A.D. Pope Innocent the
Third, who had been his fellow-student and friend
in that city, called him to Rome and made him
a cardinal-priest of St. Chrysogonus. Walter of
Coventry says that Langton taught theology at
Rome also, and Roger of Wendover declares that
the Roman Court had not his equal for learning and
moral excellence.

THE STATUS OF A CARDINAL

We are not to suppose that the office of a cardinal
was, at this time, what it afterwards became.
The cardinals had not assumed the red hat, with
its tassels, for that, which is now regarded as the

STEPHEN LANGTON 25

emblem of their office, was not conceded to them till
the year 1245 A.D. by Innocent the Fourth. They
were not apparelled in the purple; for the purple
cloak was not assigned, as their robe of office, till
1464, by Paul the Second. They were, probably,
even when not consecrated to the episcopal office,
permitted to officiate in pontificalibus, for this
privilege had been conceded to many of the abbots,
who ranked as their inferiors, and they were
authorised to give the benediction, at least within
their cures. They were not superior to the legates,
for we shall see Pandulph, who never was a cardinal
and who, during the period of his acting in England,
was only sub-deacon, assuming authority over
Cardinal Langton himself. They were not ad-
dressed as " your Eminence," for that title was only
conceded to them by Urban the Eighth in the year
1630 A.D. But still, they alone were eligible to the
papacy, according to a decree of Stephen the Fourth
in 769 A.D. ; and by Nicholas the Second the
principle was established that by the cardinals
only the pope was to be elected. They had not,
as yet, assumed a position of equality with princes
of royal birth, and the consistory did not exist in
its present form.

A SPLENDID APPOINTMENT

The Pope praised Langton in a bull to the prior
of Christ Church, Canterbury, in the words " Our

26 STEPHEN LANGTON

beloved son, Master de Langton, a man verily endowed
with life, fame, knowledge and doctrine" (Stephanum
de Langetuna, natione Anglicum, verum profundi
pectoris, elegantem corpore, moribus prselectum,
aptum et sufficientem in quantum est universalem
ecclesiam gubernandi).

It is clear, then, that Langton was, as has already
been stated, the most illustrious living churchman of
English birth when the struggle for the freedom of
the See of Canterbury begins. It was an excellent
appointment. The Pope was a man of the highest
character for piety, judging him by the standard of
his own time, and sought to exercise the vast powers
which he claimed in the interests of religion, for
he deprived himself of a personal friend and valuable
official in order to send to Canterbury the man who
seemed best fitted for the important office, and he
was probably anxious for the sake of the Church to
place in the seat of Augustine the first scholar of
the first university of Christendom, a man on whom
he could rely in the interests of religion, and whom
John himself respected so much that he thrice
congratulated Langton [by letter on his elevation
to the cardinalate.

It might be suggested here that Innocent the
Third only appointed Stephen Langton feeling that
he would have such a strong and influential sup-
porter in him, as Archbishop of Canterbury, in

STEPHEN LANGTON 27

bringing England into complete subjection to the
papacy.

If he did, he was soon undeceived, just as Henry
the Second was in regard to his friend Thomas
Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anyhow, Lang-
ton did not much like the change for himself. He,
no doubt, knew that the lives of the Archbishops
of Canterbury were often full of troubles, and he
foresaw that it would be difficult to get on with
the King, and in this he was not mistaken ; he very
soon had a proof of it.

Innocent the Third had even reason to flatter
himself that the choice would not be disagreeable
to John, who had frequently spoken of Cardinal
Langton in terms of the highest esteem. To
obviate, however, all probable objections, he not
only sent to request the King's permission that the
monks might make the election at Rome, but when
Stephen had been elected, dispatched other envoys
to solicit his approbation of the prelate-elect. His
letters, however, were detained at Dover ; no answer
was returned ; and the Cardinal, after a decent but
fruitless delay, was consecrated June 17, 1207, at
Viterbo, by Innocent himself. Shortly after this
the following letter was sent, entitled

28 STEPHEN LANGTON

" CONCERNING FOUR RINGS SENT BY POPE
INNOCENT III TO KING JOHN.

"To John the King of England. Of all the
works of earth which the eyes of mortals covet,
and which the flesh desireth, the most pure gold
and precious stones have principally obtained our
estimation. But however these and the like riches
are to be prized, Your Royalty should abound with
other excellencies; yet, nevertheless, in token of
our great love and favour, We have prepared for
You Four Golden Rings, with various precious
stones, in which We desire you specially to under-
stand their Form, their Number, their Material,
and their Colour ; inasmuch as a more excellent
meaning attends the gift. Their Roundness, there-
fore, signifiea Eternity, which is without beginning
or end ; and Royalty should have the virtue which
is required by this form, considering that earth is
the passage to heaven, and that temporality pro-
ceedeth out of eternity. Their Number of four,
also, whose own number is a perfect square, signifies
Firmness of mind, which is neither depressed by
adversity, nor elevated by prosperity ; and what is
praiseworthy to be accomplished, is commonly done
with the four principal Virtues; namely, Justice,
Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance. Under-
stand, therefore, firstly, Justice, as exercised in
judging; secondly, Fortitude, as shown in ad-

STEPHEN LANGTON 29

versity; in the third place, Prudence, as watchful
in doubt; and fourthly, Temperance, as not dis-
carded even in prosperity. For their Materials, by
the fine gold is designated Wisdom, which, as gold
is pre-eminent over all metals, so doth the gift of
Wisdom surpass all others, as the Prophet witnesses,
saying, The Spirit of Wisdom shall rest upon him,
etc. Indeed, nothing is more fitting that a King
should have; and accordingly the pacific King
Solomon prayed of the Lord for Wisdom only, that
he might know how to govern the people committed
to him. Moreover in the precious stones, note that
the green of the Emerald, signifies Faith ; the mild-
ness of the Sapphire, Hope; the redness of the
Ruby, Charity; and the brilliancy of the Topaz,
good works ; of which the Lord hath said, Let your
lights so shine. From these, therefore, you have
in the Emerald what you should believe; in the
Sapphire what you should hope ; in the Ruby what
you should love ; and in the Topaz what you should
practise; so that you may rise from virtue to
virtue, until you come to the sight of the Lord of
Lords in Sion.

" Given at Rome at St. Peter's the 4th of the
Calends of June " (May 29, 7th of John, 1205).

It may have been imprudent and indecorous to
force a prelate on the King without waiting for his
consent; but it must be confessed that the whole

30 STEPHEN LANGTON

proceeding was conducted according to the canons
which at the time obtained the force of law, and
with more attention to John's honour than many
sovereigns experienced at the Court of Rome.

THE ANGRY KING

But neither the praises of Pope Innocent the
Third nor the merits of Langton could satisfy or
appease the angry King. John, with the hot
blood common to his race, and the bad judgment
peculiar to himself, rushed headlong into the
quarrel from which a little circumspection would
have saved him, for he chose to enter the lists
against Innocent the Third, matching his own low
cunning at once against the consummate diplomacy
of the Roman Curia and the aspiring statesmanship
of the greatest of all the popes. If Innocent had
had to deal with Henry the Second, or even with
Hubert Walter, he would have been met with his
own weapons; the delays and evasions of the
canon law would have been made serviceable on
both sides; the crisis would have been a compro-
mise. John's policy in the matter was simply the
blundering, floundering, pettifogging, obstinate, and
yet irresolute procedure of a violent man, devoid of
real courage or counsel, and ignorant of the strength
of his cause.

When the King heard of Langton's consecration

STEPHEN LANGTON 31

he drove the monks of Canterbury out of the country
for electing without his permission, and proclaimed
that any one who acknowledged Langton as Arch-
bishop of Canterbury should be accounted a public
enemy (a consequence of which was that the Arch-
bishop's father fled into exile at St. Andrew's), and
he wrote to the Pope insisting upon the confirmation
of his own nominee's election, and declared that
Stephen Langton should never set foot in England
as primate. What marks John personally from the
long list of our sovereigns, good and bad, is this,
that there is nothing in him which for a single
moment calls out our better sentiments; in his
prosperity there is nothing that we can admire,
and in his adversity nothing that we can pity.
Many, most perhaps, of our other kings have had
both sins and sorrows; sins for which they might
allege temptations, and sorrows which are not less
meet for sympathy because they were well deserved,
but for John no temptations are to be pleaded in
extenuation of his guilt, and there is not one moment,
not one of the many crises of his reign, in which we
feel the slightest movement towards sympathy.
Now, King John being so utterly bad as a man and
as a king, our sympathies are apt to go against him
under all circumstances, but in the present case
he was not without some show of right, and he
justly deserves our praise on this occasion for
vindicating the independence of the Church of

32 STEPHEN LANGTON

England and his royal rights against the worl(
dominating Pope Innocent the Third.

PAPAL LAWLESS USURPATIONS

Although all the appointments made by the
Pope to offices in the English Church were lawless
usurpations yet all of them were not necessarily
bad. vSometimes, there was a deliberate intention
of making a good appointment; sometimes one
proved good where there had been no such inten-
tion. There can be no doubt that the thrusting of
Cardinal Stephen Langton into the See of Canter-
bury by Innocent the Third (1207) was a violent
intrusion on the rights of the English Church and
also on the rights of the English King John; but
the appointment of a man, so true a lover of all
which was best and freest in English life, was one
for which, we shall see, every Englishman to this
day is thankful, if not to the Pope who made the
appointment, only partially knowing his man, yet
to Him who overrules this service to so signal a
gain for the English Church and people.

Innocent virtually acknowledged that John had
some ground of complaint, and went so far as to
solicit the assent and approbation of the King, and
promised, if John would acquiesce, to take care
that the past transaction should not be converted
into a precedent injurious to the prerogatives of

STEPHEN LANGTON 33

the English Crown. But the obstinacy of the
monarch was not to be softened; he avowed that
Langton should never set foot in England in the
character of primate. The die was now cast, and
the quarrel became a tower of strength between
the power of the king and that of the pontiff.

King John then seized the property belonging
to the cathedral and monastery of Canterbury.
The Pope retorted with one of the most terrible
weapons in his spiritual armoury; he threatened
to place the kingdom under an Interdict. John
replied that if his clergy obeyed the Interdict he
would banish the whole lot of them and confiscate
their goods, and that if he found any of the Roman
clergy in his dominions he would send them back
to Rome with their eyes plucked out and their
noses slit, but this cruel threat was utterly disre-
garded. To Innocent's threat of Interdict, August
27, 1207 A.D., John replied in November by giving
to another Stephen's prebend of York.

THE INTERDICT

The Pope knew how to thoroughly avenge him-
self : he did a very bold act ; he now laid the
kingdom of England under an Interdict, a singular
form of punishment by which the person of the
King was spared, and his subjects, the unoffending
parties, were to suffer; for no services were to be

34 STEPHEN LANGTON

performed in the churches — no one could be married,
baptised, or buried with Christian services until
such times as King John would submit to papal
authority. It might be profitable for us to remem-
ber that the excommunication of an individual cut
him off from the visible Church; he was shunned
by all Christian people; he might not enter a
church, he must live without its sacraments, and
be buried like a dog; moreover, it carried with it
civil disabilities; he was outside the pale of the
law; the civil power would not defend him from
spoliation, robbery, or personal injury, or avenge
his death; but the sentence of Interdict was passed
against a whole nation. Its effect was to deprive
the whole people of the offices of public religion.
The following translation of the original in Wilkin's
Concilia, i. p. 526, by Gee and Hardy, is the answer
of Innocent the Third to the Bishops of London,
Ely and Winchester as to the observance of the
Interdict.

" 1208. Innocent the bishop (episcopus) etc., to
the Bishops, just mentioned, greeting and apostolic
blessing. We reply to your inquiries, that whereas
by reason of the Interdict new chrism cannot be
consecrated on Maundy Thursday, old must be used
in the baptism of infants, and, if necessity demand,
oil must be mixed by the hand of the bishop or else
priest, with the chrism, that it fail not, and although

>rf

STEPHEN LANGTON 35

the viaticum seem to be meet on the repentance of
the dying, yet, if it cannot be had, we who read it
believe that the principle holds good in this case,
' believe and thou hast eaten/ when actual need,
and not contempt of religion, excludes the sacra-
ment, and the actual need is expected soon to cease.
Let neither gospel nor church hours be observed
in the accustomed place, nor any other, though the
people assemble in the same. Let religious men,
whose monasteries people have been wont to visit
for the sake of prayer, admit pilgrims inside the
church for prayer, not by the greater door, but by
a more secret place. Let church doors remain
shut save at the chief festival of the church, when
the parishioners and others may be admitted for
prayer into the church with open doors. Let
baptism be celebrated in the usual manner with
old chrism and oil inside the church with shut doors,
no lay person being admitted save the god-parents,
and, if need demand, new oil must be mixed.
Penance is to be inflicted as well on the whole as
the sick; for in the midst of life we are in death.
Those who have confessed in a suit, or have been
convicted of some crime, are to be sent to the
bishop or his penitentiary, and, if need be, are to
be forced to this by church censure. Priests may
say their own hours and prayers in private. Priests
may on Sunday bless water in the churchyard and
sprinkle it ; and can make and distribute the bread

36 STEPHEN LANGTON

when blessed, and announce feasts and fasts and
preach a sermon to the people. A woman after
childbirth may come to church, and perform her
purification outside the church walls. Priests shall
visit the sick, and hear confessions, and let them
perform the commendation of souls in the accus-
tomed manner, but they shall not follow the corpses
of the dead because the latter will not have church
burial. Priests shall, on the day of the Passion,
place the cross outside the church without ceremony,
so that the parishioners may adore it with the
customary devotion."

EXILED ARCHBISHOP AND CANTERBURY MONKS

Innocent had already, eight years before, used
this terrible weapon of Interdict with effect against
Philip Augustus, one of the ablest kings of France.
The Interdict caused, as we should expect, a terrible
state of things, and Simon Langton, the brother of
Stephen, who was high in favour with the King,
entreated him to allow the Archbishop and the
exiled Canterbury monks to return to England in
order that the Interdict might be taken off. The
bishops of Norwich, Winchester and Bath were
brave enough to disobey the Pope's command, and
also joined with Simon Langton in pleading with
John to yield. Not only were some bishops found
who took no notice of the Interdict, but many other

STEPHEN LANGTON 37

individual clergymen acted the same way; and
even where the Interdict was observed, the people
could attend divine service on Sundays in the
monasteries; marriages and churchings of women
were allowed, but only at the church door ; sermons,
but only in the open air ; children might be baptised ;
but the Holy Communion could be administered
only to the dying.

The clergy who remained in England were many
in number, and their continuance in the country
was a toleration which they experienced on the
sole condition that they did not observe the In-
terdict. In the convents of the regulars the ob-
servance of the canonical hours became a necessity
for the preservation, if not of piety, yet of that
regulation of time without which convents soon
degenerated and became corrupt, but it was to be
without singing.

THE INTERDICT GENERALLY OBSERVED

King John and Innocent were each determined
to try who could hold out the longer. All prelates
or clergy who obeyed the Pope were expelled from
the realm and their benefices seized. This was a
convenient way for the King to supply himself
with money. The general confiscation or forfeiture
of Church property must have relieved greatly
the financial distress of the King, and during the

38 STEPHEN LANGTON

years when these lands were administered as part
of the royal domains, we hear less of attempts
at national taxation. In this the King was upheld
by the bishops of Durham, Winchester and Norwich,
who agreed that the Pope had no legal right to
issue such an edict. But the Pope remained firm
and so did King John.

The Interdict seems to have been generally ob-
served by the clergy. The Cistercian monks at
first declared that they were not bound to respect
it, but they were, after a time, forced by the Pope
to conform. Nearly all the bishops went into exile.
Two only remained in the end, both devoted more
to the King than the Church : John de Grey, Bishop
of Norwich, employed during most of the time in
secular business in Ireland, and Peter de Roches,
appointed Bishop of Winchester 1205, destined to
play a leading part against the growing liberties of
the nation in the next reign, and now, as a chronicler
says, occupied less in defending the Church than in
administering the King's affairs.

But if the clergy were necessarily inclined to the
side of the Pope during the Interdict, it was other-
wise with the laity; though they feared the Pope
much, they hated him more, even more, perhaps, at
first than they hated the King.

Indeed, it is from this time onward that we may
date the deep distrust of sacerdotal pretensions
which is such a remarkable factor in the history of

STEPHEN LANGTON 39

such a deeply religious people as ourselves. The
confiscation of the clerical lands seems to many
pious laymen a regrettable but righteous retribution
for the enormous wealth and greed of all orders in
the Church.

Thus, although one cannot say that the sober
part of the laity gave King John an enthusiastic
support against Innocent, at all events it gave
Innocent none against John. The result of the
action of Pope Innocent the Third is generally over-
stated. No doubt there were many persons who
believed that the Pope had such power as Innocent
claimed, and therefore obeyed this injunction, but
there was a large number of others, well acquainted
with the struggles that the Church had made for
many generations to retain its national independence
against the aggrandisement of the papacy, who
cared very little for the Pope's threatenings.

LANGTON IN EXILE AT PONTIGNY

But where was Stephen Langton at this time?
He was at Pontigny in France, which opened its
doors a second time to an exiled Archbishop of
Canterbury, and it was probably his headquarters
during the next five years.

A story of his having been Chancellor of Paris
University during this period seems to rest upon a
double confusion of persons and offices.

40 STEPHEN LANGTON

John opened a correspondence with Langton.
A safe-conduct was offered to Simon, the Arch-
bishop's brother, in February 1208 A.D. Of this
Simon availed himself, and he was permitted to
remain in England till Easter. Simon Langton had
an interview with the King on March 12, 1208.

The King evidently thought himself, or wished
his people to believe, that he had been hardly used.
He published the result of the interview in a letter
to the people of Kent.

" The King, to all the men of Kent. Know
ye, that Master Simon of Langton came to us
at Winchester on March 12, and, in the presence
of our bishops, prayed us to receive Master
Stephen Langton, his brother, as Archbishop
of Canterbury. When we spoke to him of pre-
serving our dignity in this business, his answer was,
that he would do nothing for us, with respect to
that, unless we placed ourselves altogether at his
mercy. We inform you of this, that ye may know
what ill and injury has been done to us in the
matter. We command you to give credence to
what Reginald of Cornhill shall tell you on our
behalf concerning the aforesaid transactions be-
tween us, the said bishops and the same Simon,
and concerning the execution of our precept therein
14 March, 1208 A.D. Then the King committed
to Reginald of Cornhill the custody of the said
bishopric."

STEPHEN LANGTON 41

In September 1208 John invited Stephen Lang-
ton to a meeting in England and sent him a safe-
conduct for three weeks, but he addressed it not
to the Archbishop of Canterbury but to Stephen
Langton, Cardinal of the Roman See. Of course,
Stephen could not accept it, as to do so would have
been to acknowledge that his election was invalid.

Throughout these years of exile Stephen Langton's
part in the struggle between Innocent and John
was always that of a peacemaker. From Pontigny
he addressed a letter to the English people, giving
them advice and encouragement in their coming
trial, and identified his own interests with theirs,
and in the letter there is neither a word of personal
bitterness nor of personal grievance. But in his
efforts as a peacemaker there is to be found the
note of mingled firmness and moderation, and this
is seen in a letter to the Bishop of London empower-
ing him to act in the primate's place against the
despoilers of Canterbury, and another to the King,
warning him of the evils he was bringing upon his
realm and offering an immediate relaxation of the
Interdict if he would come to a better mind.

EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE KING

John was then threatened with excommunication,
but as there were no bishops left in the country
who were acting in the interests of the Pope, and

42 STEPHEN LANGTON

John took care that there should be no means of
making any proclamation of the impending sentence
in his kingdom, he was not to be moved.

So, when Innocent launched, in 1209 A.D., a bull
of excommunication, John was able successfully to
watch the ports and keep the outrageous bit of
sheepskin out of the country, and the Pope had to
be content with the formal publication of King
John's excommunication in France.

Though excommunication may have inconveni-
enced the King a little, it did not, at first, trouble
him much, except that it made him still more
bitter against the Pope. For some years the
Interdict continued, but each year the tyrannies
and exactions of John increased so much that to
escape from them the clergy and barons decided to
ask the Pope to adopt still stronger measures.
Although excommunication did not trouble the
King much, it so affected Geoffrey, Archdeacon of
Norwich, one of the judges of the Court of Ex-
chequer, that he at once left the Court with some
expression about the danger of serving an excom-
municated king. John had him thrown into prison
and a leaden cope put over his head, and by this and
other severe usage put an end to Geoffrey's life.

THE BETTER SIDE OF JOHN'S CHARACTER

Miss Bateson, in Medieval England, p. 149, tries
hard to show a better side to the King's character,

STEPHEN LANGTON 43

for she says : " John sought to make up for his
life's irregularities by regular and liberal almsgiving ;
if he had irreligious convictions, he had not the
courage of them. Very steadily did the paupers,
by hundreds and even thousands, reap their penny
apiece because the King or other ministers, led
astray by him, ate meat twice on a fast-day. He
fed 350 poor men because he had good sport one
day and took seven cranes. Many were fed ' for
the souls of his father and brother Richard, that
the prayers of the beggars who had dined might
release their souls from purgatory/ But many
were the disappointed religious, who looked in vain
for a handsome gift from the King to their church
in return for hospitalities received. King John
has hardly had justice done to him as a book-
lender, and therefore, possibly, a book-lover. The
extracts from the close-rolls have long been in print
which show him ordering a copy of the Romance of
English History, and acknowledging ' the receipt of
six books/ the Old and New Testaments, and other
works from the Abbot of Reading. That such works
were not John's daily reading we may well believe,
but the records show the nature of the Court library
and the orderly arrangements for the loan and
return of books." But in spite of his charity to the
poor, King John's character was so bad that he was
hated by the people ; barons, clergy, and nobles of
all degrees dreaded his entrance into their houses.

44 STEPHEN LANGTON

It really seemed as if he would do anything,
however mean or cruel, to get money. It is said
that on one occasion he had all the teeth of an
unfortunate Jew taken out one by one in order to
make him give up his treasures.

On another occasion there came to the King, on
the borders of Wales, officers of one of the sheriffs,
leading a robber with his hands bound behind his
back, who had robbed and killed a priest, and they
asked the King what should be done to him. " He
has killed one of my enemies; loose him and let
him go," ordered John. Such a man was not likely
to get much support from the majority of his
people.

THE CONCILIATORY ARCHBISHOP

Towards the close of 1209 A.D. Langton sent his
steward to John with overtures for a reconciliation ;
this time the King responded by letters patent,
inviting my lord of Canterbury to a meeting at
Dover, but John came no nearer than Chilham.

On December 20, 1209 A.D. Archbishop Langton
consecrated Hugh of Wells to the bishopric of
Lincoln, the latter having gone to the former for
that purpose in defiance of the King's order that
he should be consecrated by the Archbishop of
Rouen. Next year John tried again to lure Stephen
across the Channel, and offered to submit to the
Pope, to acknowledge Langton as Primate, to

STEPHEN LANGTON 45

restore the exiled clergy, and to pay a limited sum
as compensation for the rents of the confiscated
clerical estates.

The Archbishop of Canterbury demanded not
only restitution in full but also would only respond
to the invitation on the fulfilment of three con-
ditions : (i) that he should have a safe-conduct in
proper form, (2) that, once in England, he should
be allowed to exercise his archiepiscopal functions
there, and (3) that no terms should be required of
him save those proposed on his last visit to Dover.

King John's reply came in the shape of an un-
acceptable because irregular safe-conduct.

Instead of letters patent, according to custom,
letters were closed and accompanied with a warning
from English nobles which resulted in Stephen's
immediate return to France. Dr. Hook gives the
following as showing the conciliatory temper of
Langton, and how willing he was to make a sacrifice
of everything merely personal for the sake of peace.
It was written when the negotiations between the
Archbishop and the King were almost but not en-
tirely concluded.

" Stephen, by the grace of God, Archbishop
of Canterbury, Primate of all England, Cardinal
of the Church of Rome, to all who shall see
this charter, greeting. Know all of you that we
do not wish that anything which is done by our

46 STEPHEN LANGTON

dear Lord John, the King of England, or by us,
touching the election, or the confirmation, or the
consecration of the elect of Rochester, which can
be hurtful to our aforesaid Lord, or to his heirs,
either in seisin or in right, which he declares himself
to have in the advowson of the Bishop of Rochester.
Moreover, we wish it to be established, if the peace
is not concluded which is spoken of between him
and us, and if the peace is concluded, the charter
which the aforesaid King respecting the advowson,
etc., shall be firmly established, we have confirmed
them by this charter and our seal. Dated at
Winchester the first year of the relaxation of the
general Interdict of England, January 20."

JOHN DEPOSED FROM HIS THRONE

Langton's country's growing misery shows him in
contrast to the former exiled Archbishop of Canter-
bury (Anselm) at Pontigny, for, after addressing
to the English a protest he was moved, in 1212 A.D.,
along with the Bishops of London and Ely, to urge
upon Innocent the necessity of taking energetic
measures for putting an end to the wretched state
of affairs in England ; and in adopting this extreme
measure he had consistently adopted towards John
as conciliatory an attitude as his duty to the Church
would allow, and had more than once, as we have
already seen, entered upon negotiations for a
peaceful compromise. The Pope had now a standing
army, the result mainly of the Crusades, and with

STEPHEN LANGTON 47

this army he was in the habit of fighting against
kings and emperors as if he were a temporal
prince; he could, therefore, enforce his will by an
appeal to arms, as John very well knew. The
embassy mentioned resulted in bringing, January i,
1213, a sentence of deposition declaring John de-
posed from his throne and absolving the King's
subjects from their allegiance; and also granting
the forfeited kingdom to Philip Augustus, King of
France, who was not, as we have seen, generally
an obedient servant of the Pope, but now that it
suited his purpose he obeyed with considerable
alacrity. John, on his side, called out the military
force of the kingdom; every ship in his kingdom
capable of carrying six horses was brought to Ports-
mouth harbour, and the sheriffs of counties sum-
moned to the coast of Kent all persons who were
able to bear arms. The King, however, had not
the means of maintaining the vast forces thus
collected from fear of invasion; and they were
reduced to 60,000 men, out of whom, Matthew
Paris observes, there was scarcely one on whose
fidelity he could depend, though the same historian
calls them enough to have defied all the powers of
Europe, if they had felt any loyalty towards their
sovereign; but the tyrant, after eight years'
obstinacy, we see, dared not trust his own subjects,
and in spite of his scoffing disregard of religion
he trembled at the papal excommunication (and,
therefore, his own despair of salvation), the dire

48 STEPHEN LANGTON

effects of which he saw in the downfall of his nephew,
the Emperor Otto of Germany, his dread of the
King of France, his doubts of his own barons,
some of whom he knew to be perfidious, but above
all he dreaded the fulfilment of the prophecy of
Peter of Wakefield, that on the approaching feast
of the Ascension he should be no longer king, and
also realising that he would stand no chance against
the combined power of Philip, King of France, and
Pope Innocent the Third; he now passed from the
height of insolence to the lowest prostration of fear,
and secretly sent the Abbot of Beaulieu to Pandulph,
the legate or clerical ambassador whom the Pope
had sent as his representative with the French
invading force, to offer his submission to the Pope,
and he agreed to receive Stephen Langton as Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. But Pope Innocent required
more than this. He forced the terrified King to
surrender his crown, robes, sword, and ring to his
legate, Pandulph, May 13, 1213; and to receive
them back after a day or two as a favour from the
Pope, and also to sign a charter in which King John
said " that, not constrained by fear, but of his own
free will/' he agreed to hold these dominions as
feudatory or as a servant of the Church of Rome,
" and as a sign, moreover, of this our perpetual
obligation and concession," John said, " we will
and establish that from the proper and especial
revenues of our aforesaid kingdoms, for all the
services and customs which we ought to render to

STEPHEN LANGTON 49

them, saving in all things the penny of St. Peter,
the Roman Church shall receive yearly 1000 marks
sterling, viz. at the feast of St. Michael 500 marks,
and at Easter 500 marks — 700 namely for the
kingdom of England and 300 for the kingdom of
Ireland — saving to us and our heirs our rights,
liberties and regalia."

PETER'S PENCE

Peter's Pence, by the way, amounted to £199 8s.,
paid from the different dioceses in the following
proportions, "as I," says Lingard (History of
England, vol. iii. p. 33), "transcribed from the
Ex Regist Antent, Innocent III, in the Vatican
library."

i *•
Canterbury . . . 7 18

Rochester . . . 5 12

London . . . .1610

Norwich . . . . 21 10

Ely 50

Lincoln . . . . 42 o

Chichester . . . .80

Winchester . . . 17 8

Exeter . . . -95

Worcester. . . 10 5

Hereford . . . .60

Bath . . . . ii 5

Salisbury . . . .70

Coventry . . . . 10 5

York . . . . ii 10

50 STEPHEN LANGTON

Either the £199 8s. given as the total of Peter's
Pence is a misprint, or a sum of £10 has been omitted
from one of the contributing dioceses. It will be
noticed that the extreme northern dioceses of
Durham and Carlisle are not mentioned in this
list.

HUMILIATING SURRENDER OF JOHN

In addition to the payment of 1000 marks and
Peter's Pence, John agreed that if he or his suc-
cessors should revoke or infringe the charter they
should forfeit all right to their dominions. Thus
was John humiliated, and in the indignant language
of the historian, Matthew Paris, " thus did he make
a charter to be abhorred throughout all ages."

John's Oath of Fealty, May 15, 1213, as trans-
lated by Gee and Hardy, is as follows—

"I, John, by the grace of God, King of England
and lord of Ireland, from this hour forward will be
faithful to God and the blessed Peter and the Roman
Church and my lord the Pope Innocent and his
successors following in Catholic manner; I will not
be party in deed, word, consent, or counsel, to their
losing life or limb or being unjustly imprisoned.
Their damage, if I am aware of it, I will prevent,
and will have removed if I can, or else, as soon as
I can, I will signify it or will tell such persons as I
shall believe will tell them certainly. Any counsel
they entrust to me immediately or by their messenger

sr's

STEPHEN LANGTON 51

or their letter, I will keep secret, and will consciously
disclose to no one to their damage. The patrimony
of the blessed Peter, and specially the realms of
Ireland, I will aid to hold and defend against all
men to my ability. So help me God and these holy
Gospels.

" Witness myself at the house of the Knights of
the Temple, near Dover, in the presence of the
lord H. Archbishop of Dublin— G. Fitz-Peter, Earl
of Essex, our justiciar, etc."

It is needless to say that no English king had
ever stooped, or was ever to stoop as low as this;
and equally needless to say that no great Council of
English barons had been called to sanction such a
grovelling transaction.

Even Cardinal Gasquet (Henry III and the
Church, p. 4) says, "it is by no means clear
that the King's assertion, that he had had the full
assent of his people in making his submission, is
quite correct. It is hard to see how such an assent
could have been obtained, and there is little doubt
that to many churchmen, like Cardinal Langton,
the surrender of any ' overlord/ even were he the
Pope himself, was eminently distasteful. More-
over, in after years it was plainly asserted that the
nation had never consented to King John's act,
and that even Stephen (Langton) the Archbishop
had stood against."

52 STEPHEN LANGTON

LANGTON'S ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND

The exiled prelates returned to Dover in triumph,
with Langton at their head, July 16, 1213. The
King went forth to meet them at Porchester, threw
himself on the ground before the Archbishop with
a " Welcome, father," and he entreated the prelates
to have compassion on him.

When England heard and realised what its king
had done it tingled with a sense of shame. ' The
King has become the Pope's man," the people cried.
" he has degraded himself to the level of a serf."

This transaction heaped eternal infamy on the
memory of John, but, around and about this time,
it was not an uncommon thing for kings to acknow-
ledge the overlordship of other kings and of the
Pope as an earthly monarch. Thus, only nine years
before this period Peter, King of Arragon, had
voluntarily become the vassal of Pope Innocent the
Third, binding himself and his successors to pay the
Holy See 250 ounces of gold yearly.

William the Lion, King of Scotland, acknowledged
the overlordship of Henry the Second by the
ignominious treaty of Falaise, from which he was
absolved on payment of a sum of money to the
absentee King Richard the First of England. We
must judge the doings of the people at this time by
the general standard of international conduct in
Europe at the time. It would be interesting to

STEPHEN LANGTON 53

know how many of those who suggested John's
surrender to the Pope were included among those
who, two years afterwards, resisted the papal bull
which declared the Great Charter null and void.

But the King's surrender was to some extent
politic or prudent, for it prevented for a time another
foreign invasion. The King of France had already
raised an army to invade England, but when it
came to the point, the English people, much as they
hated John, were too patriotic to see their country
given into the hands of a foreigner, and John's
submission, already referred to, put an end to the
matter.

After making submission to the papal legate at
Dover, May 15, 1213, John remained in Kent,
Sussex, and Hampshire, preparing for an expedition
to France, on which, as he was still excommunicate,
says Stubbs (Select Charters, p. 286), the barons
refused to accompany him.

The Pope ordered the King of France and his son
to desist from their intended invasion of England,
as it had now become the patrimony of St. Peter;
to which the King of France replied that he had
spent £60,000 to enforce the Pontiff's sentence, but
that he would turn his power upon Flanders for
some indemnity; swearing that France should
become Flanders or Flanders France. Langton,
in his eagerness to forgive, overleapt the bounds
of the Pope's instructions and the usual forms of

54 STEPHEN LANGTON

ecclesiastical procedure, and without more ado he
performed his first episcopal acts in England on
Sunday, July 20, 1213, by absolving his King in
the chapter house of Winchester Cathedral and
afterwards celebrating Mass in his presence and
giving him the kiss of peace, but the Interdict was
not removed until the papal legate was satisfied
with the restitution John had made.

In the chapter house just mentioned, Stephen
Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave the King,
after absolution from his excommunication, the
book of the Gospels to hold whilst he took the
following oath administered to him by the Prelate.
;< That he would diligently defend the ordinances
of the Holy Church, and that his hand should be
against all her enemies; that the good laws of his
ancestors, and especially those of King Edward
the Confessor, should be recalled, and evil ones
destroyed; and that his subjects should receive
justice according to the upright decrees of his
courts. He likewise swore that all corporations and
private persons whom the Interdict had damaged
(Thomson, Magna Charta, p. n) should receive a
full restitution of all which had been taken away,
before the time of the approaching Easter, if his
Sentence of Excommunication were first removed.
He swore, moreover, fidelity and obedience to
Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors, and
that he would give them that superiority which

he

STEPHEN LANGTON 55

was already in writing. King John now probably
thought that, being freed from the ecclesiastical
outlawry under which he had so long lived, the
night of his misfortunes was passed, that Pope
Innocent would support him, and that his barons
would now cease to contend for the liberties of
Magna Charta.

THE BARONS STILL DISCONTENTED

Even after Langton's removal of the papal
censure from John, the northern barons still re-
fused to accompany him to Normandy. Their
new plea was that the tenure on which they held
their lands did not compel them to serve abroad;
they added that they were already exhausted by
expeditions within England.

On August 4, 1213, Stephen Langton was present
at a Council at St. Albans, where the promises of
amendment with which John purchased absolution
were renewed by the Justiciar, Fitz-Peter, in the
King's name, and directions for the fulfilment of
these promises were laid on the sheriffs, for at this
assembly, which was attended by not only the
Archbishop, but bishops and barons, and the reeve
and four men out of each of the King's demesne
townships, it was ordered quatenus leges Henrici
avi sui ab omnibus in regno custodirentur, i. e. as far
as possible the laws of Henry his grandfather should
be kept by all in the kingdom.

56 STEPHEN LANGTON

What those laws were does not seem to have been
ascertained until the 25th of the same month, when
the Archbishop produced the Charter of Henry the
First (Stubbs-Rolls, p. 474).

After John set out with his mercenaries to punish
by force of arms the refusal of his northern magnates
(McKechnie, Magna Charta, p. 35) to follow him to
the Continent, Stephen Langton opened, August 25,
1213, a Council of Churchmen at Westminster with
a sermon on the text, " My heart hath trusted in
God and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly
rejoiceth."

' Thou liest," cried one of the crowd, " thy heart
never trusted in God and thy heart never rejoiced."

The interrupter was seized and beaten until
rescued by officers of justice. Then the Archbishop
resumed his discourse. This incident shows to
some extent the popularity of Langton, and the
unpopularity of the King's attitude. The Arch-
bishop had, it seems, especially invited certain lay
barons to be present at the council.

AN HEROIC LEADER REQUIRED

There was a terrible lawless state of things exist-
ing, and to remedy this by repressing and checking
the extortions both of the King and barons, Langton
tried to have a good set of laws made, and to get the
King to promise to obey them. When King John

STEPHEN LANGTON 57

was absolved from the excommunication pronounced
by the Pope, he had promised to observe the laws
of Edward the Confessor, but no one knew what
those laws were, but Langton searched the archives
of the nation and produced the Charter of Henry the
First which stipulated what privileges the barons
and prelates respectively might claim for their order.
This he laid before the private council of nobles, held,
according to Stubbs, Cutts and Professor Adams,
at St. Paul's, but according to the National Bio-
graphy, vol. xxxii. at Westminster (Davis, H. W. C.,
Eng. under Angevins, in a footnote, says the con-
ference at St. Paul's, August 25, 1213, Ramsay
suspects as apocryphal), which was called ostensibty
to determine what use Langton should make of his
power to grant partial relaxation of the Interdict
still casting its blight over England; and which
could not be finally lifted until the legate arrived
with fuller powers.

No doubt when the assembly of the commons of
the royal demesne met the bishops and barons,
under Fitz-Peter at St. Albans, the three estates
learned much of each other's desires, and we cannot
question that when Langton at St. Paul's expounded
to the clergy the great Charter of Henry the First,
he pointed out the duty there enforced, that they
should do to their vassals as they would have the
King do to them, hence the growth of co-operation
between the barons and the commons.

58 STEPHEN LANGTON

The one hope for the opposition lay in appealing
through Archbishop Langton to the people; it
might be that the head of the National Church, by
ancient custom regarded as the King's first coun-
sellor and the protector of the poor, would be able
to arouse those whom the " head of the Church
Catholic " had ordered to be subservient. At the
council just referred to the Archbishop found him-
self recognized as the leader of the barons. He at
once raised the struggle (Davis, Eng. under Angevins,
p. 371) to a higher plane by pressing them to accept
as their programme the recently unearthed Charter
of Henry the First — a document in which the liberties
of all classes were equally secured ; and thus trans-
formed a feudal rising into a national agitation, and
caused claims of special privileges to fall into the
background behind broad principles of justice.
' Ye have heard, when at Winchester, before the
King was absolved, I compelled him to swear that
the existing evil statutes should be destroyed, and
that more salutary laws, namely, those of King
Edward the Confessor, should be observed by the
whole kingdom. In support of these things are ye
now convened; and I here disclose to you a newly-
discovered Charter of King Henry the First of
England, the which if ye are willing to support, your
long-lost liberties may be restored in all their ori-
ginal purity of character." The Prelate then pro-
ceeded to read the Charter with a loud voice, which

STEPHEN LANGTON 59

so animated the minds of the barons present that
with the greatest sincerity and joy they declared
themselves ready to die for these liberties. " Swear
it," said Archbishop Langton, and they swore to
fight for those liberties, if it were needful, even unto
death.

If it be asked why the laws of Henry the First
were substituted for those of Edward the Confessor,
the answer is easy. The latter could be collected
only from the doubtful testimony of tradition ; but
it was assumed that they had been embodied in the
Charter which Henry the First had granted at his
accession.

But why did not the barons themselves find this
Charter? Although Henry the First's Charter, as
Matthew Paris relates, was sent in the year noo to
all the English counties, and deposited in all the
principal monasteries, yet, in a little more than a
century afterwards it was so rare that a single copy
of that instrument could scarcely be found. King
John professed himself unacquainted with its con-
tents, but the whole kingdom was rejoiced to find a
precedent on which they might found a new charter.
Among the barons were men of very various sorts,
some who had personal aims merely, some who were
fitted by education, accomplishments and patriotic
sympathies for national champions, and some who
were carried away by the general ardour, but appar-
ently there was no one to effectively organise and

60 STEPHEN LANGTON

consolidate them until Stephen Langton threw him-
self on their side and gave them courage and pru-
dent guidance, together with the sanction of religion
which religious men (professionally at least) of that
period, I think, so much desired. And in this
attitude, the Archbishop proved himself not only
a statesman and a patriot, but also a hero, especially
when we take into account that he had to deal with
a King whose attitude towards statesmen was cruel,
revengeful and ungrateful, for when Fitz-Peter, the
justiciary — a man whom John feared — had died,
October 2, 1213, during the latter's absence in
France, he laughed at the news imparted to him :
" It is well," said he, " in hell he may again shake
hands with Hubert, our late primate, for surely he
will find him there. By God's teeth (Stubbs says
" by the feet of God ") now for the first time
I am King of England."

KING JOHN'S WISE ADVISERS

It may not be out of place to say that from the
beginning of his reign John was only saved from dis-
aster, according to Professor Tout, by the restraining
influence exercised over him by three wise advisers.
His mother, Eleanor, secured his succession to the
whole of the Angevin Empire; Hubert Walter,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, kept up some sort
of terms between him and the Church ; the Justiciar,

:

STEPHEN LANGTON 61

Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, managed, despite many ob-
stacles, to carry on the internal government of
England on the lines laid down by Henry the Second.
As time went on, the removal of these three faithful
friends left John free to follow his own caprice, and
in each case his personal action involved him in
humiliation and disaster.

The death of Eleanor, 1204 A.D., was quickly
followed by the loss of Normandy, 1204-6 A.D.
The death of Hubert Walter soon led to the mortal
quarrel with the Church. When Fitz-Peter died,
1213 A.D., John blundered into a quarrel with his
English subjects which cost him his greatest and
last humiliation.

Although John had been humiliated by becoming
the Pope's man, he was destined to pass through a
series of more humiliating circumstances than had
ever yet fallen to the lot of any other monarch. He
had arrived at the stage when he was equally odious
and contemptible, both in public and private life,
for he had grievously hurt the barons by his insolence,
dishonoured their families by his licentious gallant-
ries, enraged them by his tyranny, and given dis-
content to all ranks of men by his endless exactions
and impositions.

THE JUDICIOUS ARCHBISHOP

Under these circumstances, therefore, it was a very
good thing indeed for England that Langton was

62 STEPHEN LANGTON

able to come and take up work as Archbishop of
Canterbury, for unlike the Pope, whose object
seemed to be to thoroughly subject England and its
National Church to his will, the Archbishop gave
ear to the popular cry for redress of political griev-
ances, and persisted, as we shall soon see, in associa-
ting with the baronial opposition, even after he was
ordered by Innocent the Third to excommunicate
the barons as disturbers of the peace ; and, although
a friend of the Pope's, would not allow him to inter-
fere so completely between bishops and King as he
had been in the habit of doing of late years.

Thus it was soon seen that Archbishop Langton
was a man who knew how to manage affairs, for
whilst he was powerful he was also judicious. He
must have greatly astonished both the King and
the Pope by his line of conduct. Considering the
enormous trouble which Innocent the Third had
taken to obtain the primacy for him, we might have
expected Langton to uphold the papal claims, but
as soon as he had entered upon the temporalities of
his see, he adopted an independent attitude towards
the cruel and offensive King on the one hand and
the unbrookable Pope on the other.

One reason for this attitude was that Langton,
being a true Englishman, was hugely patriotic in
refusing to do anything which would dishonour his
country or injure his countrymen — or harm the
National Church.

STEPHEN LANGTON 63

Now in this constitutional conflict Stephen showed
himself " the soul of the movement " (Catholic
Cyclo), and this appears very clearly from the
strong action he took, as we have already seen, in
the council of St. Paul's, for when the King, who
had just landed from France and was advancing as
far as Northampton, was about to wreak vengeance
by military execution on the barons for their dis-
obedience during the late quarrel, he was overtaken
by the Archbishop, who firmly insisted on their right
to be tried and judged by their peers, and added
that if John refused them this justice he would
deem it his duty to excommunicate all, except the
King, who took part in this impious warfare.
" Rule you the Church," replied John to Langton,
" and leave me to govern the State."

THE KING'S ATTEMPT TO WEAKEN THE INFLUENCE
OF THE BARONS AND THE CLERGY

John apparently continued his journey as far
north as Durham, but returned to meet the new
papal legate Nicholas, to whom he performed the
promised homage; and, repeating the formal act
of surrender, October 1213 A.D., he completed his
alliance with the Pope.

Rome never quite forgave Langton for absolving
the King, July 20, 1213. The legate Nicholas seems'
to have taken a spiteful pleasure in asserting;4 liter: .=

? t.

64 STEPHEN LANGTON

superiority to the Archbishop of Canterbury in
every way. By his own legatine authority he de-
graded the Abbot of Westminster, and in other ways
acted in a most arbitrary manner. John, who hated
Langton, was entirely on the side of the legate. So
that the detested Archbishop was humbled, John
cared for nothing. The second resignation of
England, just now referred to, took place at West-
minster, before the Peers and Ecclesiastics, when a
new instrument of concession was drawn up and
sealed with gold, instead of wax, like the former,
in order to give additional value to its authority.

The character of Langton here shows in a beau-
tiful light; his mind was so much affected by be-
holding the kingdom yielded a second time into the
hands of a capricious priest, and seeing it would
militate considerably against the liberties he wished
to secure, that in the presence of all he declared
his solemn protest against these proceedings and
laid that protestation on the altar before them.

As most, if not all, of the great magnates were
against him, the King saw it would be well to
strengthen his position by support of the class be-
neath them in the feudal scheme of society. Perhaps
it was this which led John to broaden the basis of
the National Assembly. The Great Council which
met at Oxford, November 15, 1213, was made notable
by the presence, in addition to the crown tenants,
of representatives of the various counties.

STEPHEN LANGTON 65

Miss Norgate lays stress on the fact that these
writs were issued after the death of the great jus-
ticiary, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, and before any suc-
cessor had been appointed — John, she argues, acted
on his own initiative, and is thus entitled to the
credit of being the first statesman to introduce
representatives of the counties into the National
Assembly. The importance of this precedent need
not be obscured by the selfish nature of the motives
to which it was due. Knights who were tenants of
mesne lords (Miss Norgate says " yeomen ") were
invited to act as a counterpoise to the barons. The
peace between the King and subjects which had
followed upon the submission to Rome was not of
long duration. Difficulties soon began to arise
between the bishops and Crown as to certain ecclesi-
astical appointments made by a papal legate.

THE POPE'S AMBASSADORS

But who were these legates? They were am-
bassadors or deputies sent by the Pope into foreign
countries to charge people to respect and obey as
they would respect and obey the Pope himself.
Generally speaking, these legates usually made
themselves hated by their pride and greediness,
for they set themselves up far above the archbishops
and bishops of any country that they might be sent
into, and they squeezed out from the clergy of each

66 STEPHEN LANGTON

country which they visited the means of keeping up
their pomp and splendour.

Now the Pope's legate, Nicholas of Tusculum,
after receiving John's deed of surrender at St. Paul's,
October 3, 1213, was authorised to fill up vacancies
to benefices, and gave great offence by appointing
many ill- qualified men, on the advice of the King's
clerks and ministers, without conferring with
Archbishop Langton and the bishops.

Some of the parish churches he bestowed on his
own clerks, without any regard to the rightful
patron.

The Archbishop lodged an appeal against these
high-handed proceedings, but the legate employed
Pandulph to thwart it. Pandulph depreciated the
Primate and his suffragans to the Pope, representing
them as too grasping in their demands for restitution
and opposed to the royal authority. John, on the
other hand, although described as the most sub-
missive and modest of kings, and deserving of
much favour, yet it was only with spiritual artillery
that Pope Innocent the Third assisted him.

The tension almost reached the snapping point.
According to Cardinal Gasquet (Henry III and
the Church] , Langton summoned his suffragan
bishops (diocesan), the abbots and other prelates
of the Province of Canterbury to meet him at Dun-
stable in the early part of January 1214 A.D. ; and
there complaints were made against the papal legate

STEPHEN LANGTON 67

Nicholas' action, and, at the request of the Assembly,
Archbishop Langton, who could not endure the
interference of a papal legate in the National Church
of England, appealed to the Pope (who was evidently
quite misinformed by another legate, Pandulph, as
to the real state of affairs in England, and was com-
pletely ignorant of John's true character) against
such uncanonical, unchurchlike intrusions, and he
inhibited the legate Nicholas in 1214 A.D. from
making further appointments to churches and
abbeys. The time was now come for all the
powers in Church and State to unite in resisting
the combined efforts of the King and the Pope to
overthrow the constitutional rights and liberties of
the English people.

Langton now turned his attention to the King,
who refused to keep his promise and restore the
Church revenues which he had abstracted from
benefices and bishoprics. Instead of repaying the
Church moneys, John told Pope Innocent that he
would take the vows of a crusader, and persuaded
him to relieve him from more than half of the money
he had agreed to pay, that is, in return for his sub-
servience the Pope reduced the amount of money
King John had agreed to pay to the clergy from
100,000 to 40,000 marks, and removed the interdict,
June 29, 1214.

But this second abject submission to the papacy
the King made only when he saw the clergy and

68 STEPHEN LANGTON

barons under Archbishop Langton and Robert Fitz-
Walter at the head of what was called the Army of
God and Holy Church, for barons and people and
the better half of the clergy were alike furious ; the
removal of the Interdict, glad as every one was at
that, counted for nothing against such a humiliation.
Then, getting more bold still, John declared that
he took back his promise to observe the old English
laws, and in this he felt sure of the Pope's support.
But he had overreached himself now ; this was " the
last straw," this was more than the barons and
prelates could bear.

The defeat at Bou vines (France), August 27,
1214 A.D., one of the most memorable battles of
the Middle Ages, by which Otto the Fourth, John's
nephew, Emperor of Germany, retired to Brunswick,
resigned his crown, and ended his days in obscurity,
broke all the measures of John, who solicited and
obtained from Philip, King of France, a truce for
five years, and returned from an inglorious campaign
in France to an inglorious contest in England.

GROWING DEMAND FOR THE CHARTER OF
HENRY THE FIRST

At Bury St. Edmunds, November 4, 1214, the
barons met as if for prayer, but in addition to this
they had sworn to demand the Charter of Henry the

STEPHEN LANGTON 69

First, and were prepared, after Christmas, to force
the King to grant their claims, for " it was agreed,"
says Matthew Paris, " that after the Nativity of
our Lord, they should come to the King in a body,
to desire a confirmation of the liberties before
mentioned. And that in the meantime they were
to provide themselves with horses and arms in the
like manner — that if the King should perchance
break through that which he had specially sworn
(which they well believed), and recoil by reason of
his duplicity, they would instantly, by capturing
his castles, compel him to give them satisfaction."

It was probably as an attempt to separate the
clergy from the barons that John issued, Novem-
ber 21, 1214, the following charter respecting the
right of chapters to elect their bishops, and of the
monasteries to elect their abbots — a charter con-
firmed by the Pope, but it failed to sow dissension
in the National party.

JOHN'S ECCLESIASTICAL CHARTER, 1214 A.D.

The Interdict was relaxed, June 29, 1214, and the
damages of the Church assessed. The charter,
issued in November 1214 and reissued in January
1215 A.D., and confirmed by the Pope, is as
follows : —

" John, by the grace of God, King of England,

70 STEPHEN LANGTON

etc., to the archbishops, earls, etc., and to all who
shall see or hear these letters, greeting. Since by
the grace of God, of the mere and free-will of both
parties, there is full agreement concerning damages
and losses in the time of the Interdict, between us
and our venerable fathers, Stephen, Archbishop
of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Cardinal
of the Holy Roman Church, and Bishops of London,
Ely, Hereford, Bath and Glastonbury, and Hugh of
Lincoln. We wish not only to make satisfaction
to them, as far as in God we can, but also to make
sound and beneficial provision for all the Church of
England for ever ; and so whatsoever custom has been
hitherto observed in the English Church, in our own
times and those of our predecessors, and whatsoever
rights we have claimed for ourselves hitherto in the
elections of any prelates, we have, at their own
petition, for the health of our soul and the souls of
our predecessors and successors, Kings of England,
freely of our mere and spontaneous will, with the
common consent of our barons, granted and con-
stituted and by this our present charter have
confirmed that henceforth in all and singular the
churches and monasteries, cathedral and conventual,
of all our Kingdom of England, the elections of
all prelates whatsoever, greater or less, be free for
ever, saving to ourselves and to our heirs the
custody of vacant churches and monasteries which
belong to us.

STEPHEN LANGTON 71

" We pronounce also that we will neither hinder
nor suffer nor procure to be hindered by our minis-
ters that in all and singular the churches and monas-
teries mentioned after the prelacies are vacant, the
electors should, whenever they will, freely set a
pastor over them, yet so that leave to elect be first
asked of us and our heirs, which we will not deny
nor defer. And if by chance, which God forbid,
we should deny or defer, let the electors, none the
less, proceed to make a canonical election, and like-
wise, after the election is concluded, let our assent be
demanded, which in like manner we will not deny,
unless we put forth some reasonable excuse and law-
fully prove it by reason of which we should not con-
sent. Wherefore we will and firmly forbid that when
churches or monasteries are vacant, any one in any-
thing proceed or presiime to proceed in opposition
to this our charter. But if any do ever at any time
proceed in opposition to it, let him incur the curse
of Almighty God, and our own.

" These being witnesses — Peter, Bishop of Win-
chester." (Here follow the names of twelve barons.)

THE KING'S ATTEMPT TO PROPITIATE ARCHBISHOP
LANGTON

It was also probably with a view of propitiating
Archbishop Langton that this reform was now

72 STEPHEN LANGTON

proposed, by which the King intended to make what
had been before a sham into a reality.

In this war we see Stephen Langton as a bishop
fighting for the independence of his Church as well
as an Englishman fighting for the liberty of his
country.

John was probably well aware of what took place
at St. Edmunds after he had left. He held what
must have been an anxious Christmas at Worcester
(always a favourite resting-place of this king) but
tarried only for a day, hastening to the Temple,
London, where the proximity of the Tower would
give him a feeling of security. There, January 6,
1215, a deputation from the insurgents met him
without disguising that their demands were backed
by force. These demands, they told him, included
the confirmation of the laws of King Edward, with
the liberties set forth in Henry's Charter.

On the advice of the Archbishop and the
Marshal, who acted as mediators, John asked for
a truce till Easter, which was granted in return
for the promise that he would then give reasonable
satisfaction.

Archbishop Langton, the Marshal and the Bishop
of Ely were named as the King's securities.

On January 15, 1215 A.D., John re-issued the
Charter to the Church, and demanded a renewal of
homage from all his subjects. The sheriffs in each
county were instructed (McKechnie, Magna Charta,

STEPHEN LANGTON 73

p. 39) to administer the oath in a specially stringent
form, all Englishmen must now swear to " stand by
him against all men." John now enlisted himself
as a crusader, and both parties in the meantime
consulted the Pope.

Eustace de Vesci, as spokesman of the malcon-
tents, asked Pope Innocent, as overlord of England,
to compel John to restore the ancient liberties, and
claimed consideration on the ground that John's
surrender to the Pope had been made under pressure
put on the King by them — all to no effect. Then
in April the Northern barons, convinced that the
moment for action had arrived, met in arms at Stam-
ford, with 200 knights, their esquires and followers.
The King lay at Oxford, and commissioned the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earls of Pem-
broke and Warenne, to go and ascertain their de-
mands. They brought him back a list of grievances
which they said, " the King must redress or
we will do it for ourselves"; and as soon as
he heard it read, he exclaimed, " They might as
well have demanded my crown; do they think
I will grant them liberties which will make me a
slave? "

There was now no patience left to the barons
with John's promises and evasions; they took the
field with Fitz- Walter at their head, in defence of
their rights.

In 121 1 died Samson, of pious memory, the Abbot

74 STEPHEN LANGTON

who had prosperously ruled the great abbey of
Bury St. Edmunds, committed to him for thirty
years, and had freed it from a load of debt. This
Abbot was succeeded by Hugh de North wold, who,
in 1228, became Bishop of Ely. The King had
kept the abbatial property in his hands for a
whole year before allowing the community to
proceed to an election, and even when the leave
to elect came, difficulties arose about the " free
choice " of the monks, which caused further delays,
and it was not until March 10, 1215, that the
question was decided in Hugh de Northwold's
favour.

Even then the difficulties were not at an end, and it
was only on June 9, 1215 A.D., that he was received
by the King to do homage. By this time, however,
he had already been blessed by Archbishop Langton
on May 17. The Archbishop had thought that in
view of the commotion which had arisen between
the King and the barons, it was necessary that the
Abbot of St. Edmundsbury should be blessed without
delay, and so put himself in a position to act with
other ecclesiastics with full abbatial power should
events so demand. It was on May 17, after his
benediction at Rochester, that the news came from
London that the city had fallen into the hands of
the barons; and when the King consented to
receive the Abbot on June 10, he did so in " Staines
Meadow."

STEPHEN LANGTON 75

King John found himself deserted by nearly
everybody — seven knights only remaining true
to him. The whole nation, he saw, was in
arms against him. What should he do? He
felt it was no use to struggle, and therefore sug-
gested that the matter should be referred to the
Pope, but the sympathies of Innocent the Third
had already been only too clearly manifested,
and the offer was scornfully refused. " No,"
said the resolutely patriotic Archbishop Langton,
" this is a national affair, and must be decided by
the nation." The Archbishop of Canterbury, re-
presenting the King, although still nominally neu-
tral, but known to be in full sympathy with the
rebels, wrote out the laws, which the English people
generally demanded should be in vogue, on a large
sheet of parchment, and induced John to meet the
barons and bishops in order that this should be
signed by him in their presence.

The King was then at Windsor, and he met the
barons and bishops at a place called Runnymede,
which was our Marathon, a meadow on the bank of
the river Thames,

Where England's ancient barons, clad in arms
And stern with conquest, irom their tyrant king
(There rendered tame) did challenge and secure
The charter of our freedom.

And there and then signed the Great Charter which

76 STEPHEN LANGTON

is the " Keystone of English liberty " and the first
actual limitation of the royal prerogative.

MAGNA CHARTA, 1215

But, first, what does " Charta " mean ? The Latin
charta, carta, from the Greek %aQTqs, signified
originally papyrus, material writing, thence trans-
ferred to paper and from this material to the docu-
ment; in Old English boc, book, a written instru-
ment, contract or convention by which cessions of
sales of property or rights and privileges are con-
firmed and held, and which may be produced by
those granted to that they ought to have lawful
possession. In modern usages grants by charter
have become all but obsolete, though in England
this form is still employed in the recognition by
the Crown of such societies as the College of
Preceptors.

" The Charter in question is called Magna Charta/'
says Sir Edward Coke, " not that it is great in quan-
tity> for there be many voluminous charters com-
monly passed, specially in these later times, longer
than this is ; nor, comparatively, in respect that it is
greater than Charta de Foresta, but in respect of the
great importance and weightiness of the matter,
as shall hereafter appear. As the gold-finer will

STEPHEN LANGTON 77

not out of the dust, threads or shreds of gold, let
pass the least crumb, in respect of the excellency
of the metal, so ought not the learned reader to
let pass any syllable of THIS LAW in respect of the
excellency of the matter."

78 STEPHEN LANGTON

MAGNA CHARTA

seu
CHARTA DE LIBERTATIBUS REGIS JOHANNIS

Concessus Die Junii Quinto Decimo, A.D. 1215

In anno regni septimo decimo.
In archivis ecclesiae cathedralis Lincolniensis

asservata.

Johannes Dei Gratia,

Rex Angliae-Dominus

Hiberniae, Dux Normanniae

et Aquitaniae, Comes Andegaviae,

Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Abbatibus,

Comitibus, Baronibus, Justiciariis,

Forestalls, Vicecomitibiis, Praepositis,

Ministris, et omnibus Ballivis, et ndelebus suis.
Salutem, Sciatis Nos, intuitu Dei, et pro salute
animae nostrae, et omnium antecessorum, et
heredum nostrorum, ad honorem Dei, et exalta-
tionem Sanctae Ecclesiae, et emendationem Regni
nostri, per consilium venerabilium pat rum nostro-
rum Stephani Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, Tolius
Angliae Primatis et Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae
Cardinalis, Henri ci Dubliniensis Archiepiscopi.
Willielmi Londoniensis, Petri Wintoniencis, Josce-

STEPHEN LANGTON 79

MAGNA CHARTA

or
THE GREAT CHARTER OF KING JOHN,

Granted June 15, A.D. 1215.

In the seventeenth year of his reign.

Translated from the original preserved in the

archives of Lincoln Cathedral.

John, by the Grace of God,

King of England, Lord of

Ireland, Duke of

Normandy and Aquitane, Earl of Anjou,
to his Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots,

Earls, Barons, Justiciaries,
Foresters, Sheriffs, Governors,

Officers, and to all Bailiffs, and his faithful sub-
jects. Greeting, Know ye, that We, in the presence
of God, and for the salvation of our own soul, and
of the souls of our ancestors, and of our heirs, to
the honour of God, and the exaltation of the Holy
Church, and amendment of our kingdom, by the
counsel of our venerable fathers, Stephen, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Henry Arch-
bishop of Dublin, William of London, Peter of

80 STEPHEN LANGTON

lini Bethoniensis of Glastoniensis, Hugonis Lincoln-
iensis, Walter! Wigorniensis, Willielmi Coventrensis,
Benedict! Roffensis, Episcoporum; Magistri Pan-
dulphi Domini Papae Subdiaconi et familiaris,
Fratris Eimerici, Magistri Militiae Templi in Anglia,
et nobilium virorum Willielmi Marescalli Comitis
Pembrochiae, Willielmi Comitis Sarisburiae,Willielmi
Comitis Warreniae, Willielmi Comitis Arundelliaei
Alani de Galweia Constabularii Scotiae, Warin,
filii Geroldi, Huberti de Burgo Senescalli Pictaviae,
Petri filii Hereberti, Hugonis de Nevillae, Matthei
filii Hereberti, Thomae Basset, Alani Basset, Phi-
lippi de Albiniaco, Roberti de Roppelay, Johannis
Marescalli, Johannis filii Hugonis, et aliorum fide-
lium nostrorum; In primis concessisse Deo, et hac
presenti Charta nostra confirmasse pro nobis et
heredibus nostris in perpetuum : —

I. Quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit, et habeat
jura sua integra et libertates suas illaesas, et ita
volumus observari, quod apparet ex eo quod liber-
tatem electionum, que maxima, et magis necessaria
reputatur Ecclesiae Anglicanae, mera et spontanea
voluntate, ante discordiam inter nos et Barones
nostros motam, concessimus, et charta nostra con-
firmavimus, et earn obtinuimus, a Domini papa
Innocentio Tertio confirmari : quam et nos observa-
vimus, et ab heredibus nostris in perpetuum bona
fide volumus observari. Concessimus etiam omni-

STEPHEN LANGTON 81

Winchester, Joscelyne of Bath and Glastonbury,
Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of
Coventry, and Benedict of Rochester, Bishops;
Master Pandulph our Lord the Pope's Subdeacon
and familiar, Brother Almeric, Master of the Knights-
Templars in England, and of these noble persons,
William Mareschal Earl of Pembroke, William
Earl of Salisbury, William Earl of Warren, William
Earl of Arundel, Alan de Galloway Constable of
Scotland, Warin Fitz-Gerald, Hubert de Burgh
Seneschal of Poictou, Peter Fitz-Herbert, Hugh de
Nevil, Matthew Fitz-Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan
Basset, Philip de Albiniac, Robert de Roppel, John
Mareschal, John Fitz-Hugh, and others our liege-
men; have in the first place granted to God, and
by this our present Charter, have confirmed for us
and our heirs for ever : —

I. That the English Church shall be free, and shall
have her whole rights and her liberties inviolable;
and we will this to be observed in such a manner
that it may appear from thence, that the freedom
of elections, which was most requisite to the English
Church, which we granted, and by our Charter
confirmed, and obtained the confirmation of the
same, from our Lord Pope Innocent the Third,
before the rupture between us and our Barons, was
of our own free will ; which Charter we shall observe,
and we will it to be observed with good faith, by

82 STEPHEN LANGTON

bus liberis hominibus regni nostri, pro nobis et
haeredibus nostris in perpetuum, omnes libertates
subscriptas, habendus et tenandas eis et haeredibus
suis de nobis et haeredibus nostris.

II. Si quis Comitum vel Baronum nostrorum, sive
aliorum tenentium de nobis in capite per servitium
militare, mortuus fuerit, et cum decesserit haeres
suus plene aetatis fuerit, et relevium debeat, habeat
haereditatem suam per antiquum relevium; scili-
cet, haeres vel haeredes Comitis, de Baronia Comitis
integra, per centum libras : haeres vel haeredes
Baronis, de Baronia integra, per centum libras;
haeres vel haeredes Militis, de Feodo Militis integro,
per centum solidos, ad plus; et qui minus debuerit,
minus det, secundum antiquam consuetudinem
feodorum.

III. Si autem haeres alicujus talium fuerit infra
aetatem, et fuerit in custodia, cum ad aetatem per-
venerit, habeat haereditatem suam sine relevio et
sine fine.

IV. Gustos terrae hujusmodi haeredis qui infra
aetatem fuerit, non capiat de terra haeredis nisi
rationabiles exitus, et rationabiles consuetudines,
et rationabilia servitia, et hoc sine destructione et
vasto hominum vel rerum. Et si nos commiseri-
mus custodiam alicujus talis terrae Vicecomiti, vel
alicui alii qui de exitibus illius nobis respondere

et

STEPHEN LANGTON 83

our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all the
Freemen of our Kingdom, for us and our heirs for
ever, all the underwritten liberties to be enjoyed
and held by them and their heirs, from us and from
our heirs.

II. If any of our Earls or Barons, or others who
hold of us in chief by military service, shall die, and
at his death his heir shall be of full age, and shall
owe a relief, he shall have his inheritance by the
ancient relief; that is to say, the heir or heirs of
an Earl, a whole Earl's Barony for one hundred
pounds; the heir or heirs of a Baron for a whole
Barony, by one hundred pounds; the heir or heirs
of a Knight, for a whole Knight's fee, by one hundred
shillings at most; and he owes less, shall give less,
according to the ancient custom of fees.

III. But if the heir of any such be under age, and
in wardship, when he comes to age he shall have
his inheritance without relief and without fine.

IV. The warden of the land of such heir who shall
be under age, shall not take from the lands of the heir
any but reasonable issues, and reasonable customs,
and reasonable services, and that without de-
struction and waste of men or goods. And if we
commit the custody of any such lands to a Sheriff,
or any other person who is bound to us for the issue

84 STEPHEN LANGTON

debeat, et ille destructionem de custodia fecerit
vel vastum, nos ab illo capiemus emendam, et terra
committatur duobus legalibus et discretis hominibus
de feodo illo, qui de exitibus respondeant nobis,
vel ei cui eos assignaverimus. Et si dederimus
vel vendiderimus alicui custodiam alicujus talis
terrae, et ille destructionem inde fecerit vel vastum,
amittat ipsam custodiam; et tradatur duobus
legalibus et discretis hominibus de feodo illo, qui
similiter respondeant nobis sicut praedictum est.

V. Gustos autem, quamdiu custodiam terrae habu-
erit, sustinet domos, parcos, vivaria, stagna, molen-
dina, et caetera, ad terram illam pertinentia, de
exitibus terrae ejusdem, et reddat haeredi cum
ad plenum aetatem pervenerit, terram suam totam,
instauratam de carrucis et waignigiis, secundum
quod tempus waignigii exiget, et exitus terrae
rationabiliter poterunt sustinere.

VI. Haeredes maritentur absque disparagatione,
ita quod antequam contrahatur matrimonium,
ostendatur propinquis de consanguinitate ipsius
haeredis.

VII. Vidua, post mortem mariti, sui statim et
sine difficultate, habeat maritagium et haeredi-
tatem suam : nee aliquid det pro dote sua, vel pro
maritagio suo, vel haereditate sua, quam haeredi-

STEPHEN LANGTON 85

of them, and he shall make destruction or waste
upon the ward-lands we will recover damages from
him, and the lands shall be committed to two
lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall answer
for the issues to us, or to him to whom we have
assigned them. And if we shall give or sell to any
one the custody of any such lands, and he shall
make destruction or waste upon them, he shall lose
the custody. And it shall be committed to two
lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall
answer to us in like manner as it is said before.

V. But the warden, as long as he hath the custody
of the lands, shall keep up and maintain the houses,
parks, warrens, ponds, mills, and other things be-
longing to them, out of their issues : and shall
restore to the heir when he conies of full age, his
whole estate, provided with ploughs and other
implements of husbandry, according as the time of
wainage shall require, and the issues of the lands
can reasonably afford.

VI. Heirs shall be married without disparage-
ment, so that before the marriage be contracted,
it shall be notified to the relations of the heir by
consanguinity.

VII. A widow, after the death of her husband,
shall immediately, and without difficulty have her
marriage and her inheritance, nor shall she give
anything for her dower, or for her marriage, or for

86 STEPHEN LANGTON

tatem maritus suus et ipsa tenuerint die obitus
ipsius mariti; et maneat in domo mariti sui per
quadraginta dies post mortem ipsius, infra quos
assignetur ei dos sua.

VIII. Nulla vidua distringatur ad se maritandum
dum voluerit vivere sine marito; ita tamen quod
securitatem faciat quod se non maritabit, sine
assensu nostro de nobis tenuerit, vel sine assensu
domini sui de quo tenuerit, si de alio tenuerit.

IX. Nee nos nee Ballivi nostri, saisiemus terram
aliquam nee redditum pro debit o aliquo, quamdiu
catalla debitoris sufficiunt ad debitum reddendum;
nee plegii ipsius debitoris distringantur, quamdiu
ipse capitalis debitor sufficit ad solutionem debiti,
et si capitalis debitor defecerit in solutione debiti,
non habeus unde sol vat, plegii respondeant de
debito, et si voluerint, habeant terras et redditus
debitoris, donee sit eis satisfactum de debito quod
ante pro eo solverint, nisi capitalis debitor mon-
straverit se esse quietum inde versus eosdem
plegios.

X. Si quis mutuo coeperit aliquid a Judeis, plus
vel minus, et moriatur antequam debitum illud
solvatur, debitum non usuret quamdiu haeres fuerit
infra aetatem de quocumque teneat ; et si debitum

STEPHEN LANGTON 87

her inheritance, which her husband and she held
at the day of his death; and she may remain in
her husband's house forty days after his death,
within which time her dower shall be assigned.

VIII. No widow shall be distrained to marry
herself, while she is willing to live without a husband ;
but yet she shall give security that she will not
marry herself without our consent, if she hold of us,
or without the consent of the lord of whom she does
hold, or if she hold of another.

IX. Neither we nor our Bailiffs will seize any
land or rent for any debt, while the chattels of the
debtor are sufficient for the payment of the debt;
nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained,
while the principal debtor is able to pay the debt ;
and if the principal debtor fail in payment of
the debt, not having wherewith to discharge it, the
sureties shall answer for the debt, and if they be
willing, they shall have the lands and rents of the
debtor, until satisfaction be made to them for the
debt which they had before paid for him, unless the
principal debtor can show himself acquitted thereof
against the said sureties.

X. If any one hath borrowed anything from the
Jews, more or less, and die before that debt be paid,
the debt shall pay no interest so long as the heir
shall be under age, of whomsoever he may hold;
and if that debt shall fall into our hands, we will

88 STEPHEN LANGTON

illud incident in manus nostras, nos non capiemus
nisi catallum contentum in charta.

XI. Et si quis moriatur et debitum debeat Judeis,
uxor ejus habeat dotem suam, et nihil reddat de
debito illo ; et si liberi ipsius defuncti qui fuerint
infra aetatem, remanserint, provideantur eis neces-
saria secundum tenementum quod fuerit defuncti,
et de residue solvatur debitum, salvo servitio
dominorum. Simili modo fiat de debitis que
debentur aliis quam Judeis.

XII. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in
regno nostro, nisi per commune consilium regni
nostri; nisi ad corpus nostrum redimendum, et
primogenitum filium nostrum militem faciendum,
et ad filiam nostram primogenitam semel mari-
tandam; et ad haec non fiat nisi rationabile
auxilium.

XIII. Simili modo fiat de auxiliis de civitate
Londonii. Et Civitas Londonii habeat omnes ante-
quas libertates, et liberas consuetudines suas, tarn
per terras quam per aquas. Praetera volumus et
concedimus quod omnes aliae Civitates, et Burgi,
et Villae, et Portus, habeant omnes libertates et
liberas consuetudines suas.

XIV. Et ad habendum commune consilium regni,
de auxilio assidendo, aliter quam in tribus casibus

STEPHEN LANGTON 89

not take anything except the chattel contained in
the bond.

XI. And if any one shall die indebted to the
Jews, his wife shall have her dower and shall pay
nothing of that debt ; and if children of the deceased
shall remain who are under age, necessaries shall be
provided for them, according to the tenement which
belonged to the deceased; and out of the residue
the debt shall be paid, saving the rights of the lords
(of whom the lands are held). In like manner let
it be with debts owing to others than Jews.

XII. No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our
kingdom, unless by the common council of our
kingdom; excepting to redeem our person, to
make our eldest son a knight, and once to marry
our eldest daughter, and not for these, unless a
reasonable aid shall be demanded.

XIII. In like manner let it be concerning the aids
of the City of London. And the City of London
should have all its ancient liberties, and its free
customs, as well by land as by water. Further-
more, we will and grant that all other Cities, and
Burghs, and Towns, and Ports, should have all
their liberties and free customs.

XIV. And also to have the common council of
the kingdom, to assess and aid, otherwise than in

90 STEPHEN LANGTON

praedictis, vel de Scutagio assidendo, summoned
faciemus Archiepiscopos, Episcopos, Abbates, Com-
ites, et Majores Barones, sigillatim, per liberas
nostras. Et praeterea, faciemus summoned in
generali per Vicecomites et Ballivos nostros, omne-
sillos qui de nobis tenent in capite, ad certum diem,
scilicet, ad terminum quadraginta dierum, ad
minus, et ad certum locum; et in omnibus literis
illius summonitionis causam summonitionis expri-
memus; et sic facta summonitione, negotium ad
diem assignatum procedat, secundum consilium
illorum qui presentes fuerint, quamvis non omnes
summoniti venerint.

XV. Nos non concedemus de caetero, alicui,
quod capiat auxilium de liberis hominibus suis,
nisi ad corpus suum redimendum, et ad faciendum
primogenitum filium suum militem, et ad primo-
genitam filiam suam semel maritandam ; et ad haec
non fiat nisi rationabile auxilium.

XVI. Nullus distringatur ad faciendum ma jus
servitium de Feodo Militis, nee de alio libero tene-
mento, quam in debetur.

XVII. Communia placita non sequantur curiam
nostram, sed teneantur in aliquo certo loco.

XVIII. Recognitiones de Nova Dissaisina, de
Morte Antecessoris, et de Ultima Presentatione,

STEPHEN LANGTON 91

the three cases aforesaid; and for the assessing of
Scutages, we will cause to be summoned the Arch-
bishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls and great Barons,
individually, by our letters. And besides we will
cause to be summoned in general by our Sheriffs
and Bailiffs, all those who hold of us in chief, at a
certain day, that is to say at the distance of forty
days, (before their meeting) at the least, and to a
certain place; and in all the letters of summons,
we will express the cause of the summons ; and the
summons being thus made, the business shall pro-
ceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel
of those who shall be present, although all who had
been summoned have not come.

XV. We will not give leave to any one, for the
future, to take an aid of his own free-men, except
for redeeming his own body, and for making his
eldest son a knight, and for marrying once his
eldest daughter, and not that unless it be a reasonable
aid.

XVI. None shall be distrained to do more service
for a Knight's Fee, nor for any other free tenement,
than what is due from thence.

XVII. Common Pleas shall not follow our court,
but shall be held in any certain place.

XVIII. Trials upon the Writs of Novel Disseisin,
of Mort d'Ancestre (death of the ancestor) and

92 STEPHEN LANGTON

non capiantur nisi in suis comitatibus, et hoc modo : —
Nos, vel si extra regnum fuerimus, Capitalis Justi-
ciarius noster, mittemus duos Justiciaries per
unumquemque comitatum per quatuor vices in
anno, qui cum quatuor militibus cujuslibet comi-
tatus, electis per comitatum, capiant in comitatu,
et in die et loco comitatus, assisas praedictas.

XIX. Et si in die comitatus assisae praedicte
capi non possint, tot milites et liberae tenentes
remaneant de illis qui interfuerint comitatui die ilia
per quos possint sufficienter judicia fieri, secundum
quod negotium fuerit ma jus vel minus.

XX. Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo de-
licto, nisi secundum modum delicti; et pro magno
delicto, amercietur secundum magnitudinem delicti,
salvo contenemento suo, et Mercator eodem modo,
salva mercandisa sua, et villainus eodem modo
amercietur, salvo waignaigio suo, si inciderint in
misericordiam nostram; et nulla praedictarum
misericordiarum ponatur, nisi per sacramentum
proborum hominum de visneto.

XXI. Comites et Barones non amercientur nisi
per Pares suos, et non nisi secundum modum
delicti.

STEPHEN LANGTON 93

Darrien Presentment (last presentation), shall not
be taken but in their proper counties, and in this
manner. We, or our Chief Justiciary, if we are out
of the kingdom, will send two Justiciaries into each
county, four times in the year, who, with four
knights of each county, chosen by the county, shall
hold the aforesaid assizes, within the county on
the day and at the place appointed.

XIX. And if the aforesaid assizes cannot be
taken on the day of the county court, let as many
knights and freeholders, of those who were present
at the county court remain behind, as shall be
sufficient to do justice, according to the great or
less importance of the business.

XX. A free-man shall not be amerced for a small
offence, but only according to the degree of the
offence; and for a great delinquency, according to
the magnitude of the delinquency, saving his
contenement; a Merchant shall be amerced in the
same manner, saving his merchandise, and a Villein
shall be amerced after the same manner, saving to
him his wainage, if he shall fall into our mercy;
and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall be
assessed, but by the oath of honest men of the
vicinage.

XXI. Earls and Barons shall not be amerced
but by their Peers, and that only according to the
degree of their delinquency.

94 STEPHEN LANGTON

XXII. Nullus Clericus amercietur de laico tene-
mento suo, nisi secundum modum aliorum prae-
dictorum, et non secundum quantitatem beneficii
sui ecclesiastic!.

XXIII. Nee villa nee homo distringatur facere
pontes ad riparias, nisi qui ab antique, et de jure,
facere debent.

XXIV. Nullus Vicecomes, Constabularius, Coro-
natores, vel alii Ballivi nostri, teneant placita
coronae nostrae.

XXV. Omnes comitatus et Hundredi, Trethingii,
et Wapentachii, sint ad antiquas firmas, absque
ullo incremento, exceptis Dominicis maneriis nostris.

XXVI. Si aliquis teneus de nobis laicum feodum
moriatur, et Vicecomes vel Ballivus noster, ostendat
literas nostras patentes de summonitione nostra de
debito quod defunctus nobis debuit, liceat Vice-
comiti ve Ballivo nostro attachiare et imbreviare
catalla defuncti inventa in laico feodo, ad valentiam
illius debiti, per visum legalium hominum, ita
tamen quod nihil inde amoveatur, donee persolvatur
nobis debitum quod clarum fuit ; et residuum relin-
quator executoribus ad faciendum testamentum de-
functi et si nihil nobis debeatur ab ipso, omnia
catalla cedant defuncto, salvis uxore ipsius et
pueris rationabilibus partibus suis.

STEPHEN LANGTON 95

XXII. No Clerk shall be amerced for his lay-
tenement, but according to the manner of the others
as aforesaid, and not according to the quantity of
his ecclesiastical benefice.

XXIII. Neither a town nor any person shall be
distrained to build bridges or embankments, ex-
cepting those which anciently, and of right are
bound to do it.

XXIV. No Sheriff, Constable, Coroners, nor other
of our Bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our Crown.

XXV. All Counties, and Hundreds, Trethings,
and Wapentakes, shall be at the ancient rent,
without any increase, excepting in our Demesne-
manors.

XXVI. If any one holidng of us a lay- fee dies,
and the Sheriff or our Bailiff, shall show our letters-
patent of summons concerning the debt which the
defunct owed to us, it shall be lawful for the Sheriff
or our Bailiff to attach and register the chattels of
the defunct found on that lay-fee to the amount
of that debt, by the view of lawful men, so that
nothing shall be removed from thence until our debt
be paid to us; and the rest shall be left to the
executors to fulfil the will of the defunct, and if
nothing be owing to us by him, all the chattels
shall fall to the defunct, saving to his wife and
children their reasonable shares.

96 STEPHEN LANGTON

XXVII. Si aliquis liber homo intestatus deces-
serit, catalla sua per manus propinquorum parentum
et amicorum suorum, per visum Ecclesiae distri-
buantur; salvis unicuique debitis quae defunctis ei
debebat.

XXVIII. Nullus Constabularius vel alius Ballivus
noster, capiat blada vel alia catalla alicujus, nisi
statim inde reddat denarios, aut respectum inde
habere possit de voluntate venditoris.

XXIX. Nullus Constabularius distringat aliquem
Militem ad dandum denarios pro custodia castri,
si facere voluerit custodiam illam in propria persona
sua, vel per alium probum hominem, si ipse earn
facere non possit propter rationabilem causam; et
si nos duxerimus vel miserimus eum in exercitu, erit
quietus de custodia secundum quantitatem temporis
quo, per nos, fuerit in exercitu.

XXX. Nullus Vicecomes vel Ballivus noster,
vel aliquis alius, capiat equos vel carettas alicujus
liberi hominis pro carragio faciendo, nisi de voluntate
ipsius liberi hominis.

XXXI. Nee nos, nee Ballivi nostri, capiemus
alienum boscum ad castra vel alia agenda nostra,
nisi per voluntatem ipsius cujus boscus ille fuerit.

STEPHEN LANGTON 97

XXVII. If any free-man shall die intestate, his
chattels shall be distributed by the hands of the
nearest relations and friends, by the view of the
Church, saving to every one the debts which
the defunct owed.

XXVIII. No Constable nor other Bailiff of ours
shall take the corn or other goods of any one,
without instantly paying money for them, unless
he can obtain respite from the free-will of the
seller.

XXIX. No Constable (Governor of a Castle) shall
distrain any knight to give money for castle guard,
if he be willing to perform it in his own person, or
by another able man, if he cannot perform it him-
self, for a reasonable cause, and if we have carried
or sent him into the army, he shall be excused from
castle guard, according to the time that he shall be
in the army by our command.

XXX. No Sheriff nor Bailiff of ours, nor any
other person shall take the horses or carts of any
free-man, for the purpose of carriage, without the
consent of the said free-man.

XXXI. Neither we, nor our Bailiffs, will take
another man's wood, for our castles or other uses,
unless by the consent of him to whom the wood
belongs.

gS STEPHEN LANGTON

XXXII. Nos non tenebimus terras illorum qui
convicti fuerint de felonia, nisi per unum annum et
unum diem, et tune reddantur terrae dominis
feodorum.

XXXIII. Omnes Kidelli de caetero deponantur
penitus de Thamesia et de Medeway, et per totam
Angliam, nisi per costeram maris.

XXXIV. Breve quod vocatur Praecipe, de cae-
tero non fiat alicui de aliquo tenemento, unde liber
homo possit amittere curiam suam.

XXXV. Una mensura vini sit per totum regnum
nostrum, et una mensura cervisiae, et una mensura
bladi, scilicet quartarium Londonii ; et una latitudo
pannorum tinctorum, et russettorum, et halber-
gettorum, scilicet duae ulnae infra listas. De
ponderibus autem sit ut de mensuris.

XXXVI. Nihil detur vel capiatur de caetero pro
Brevi Inquisitionis de vita vel membris; set gratis
concedatur et non negatur.

XXXVII. Si aliquis teneat de nobis per Feodi-
Firmam, vel per Socagium, vel per Burgagium; et
de alio terram teneat per Servitium Militare, nos
non habebimus custodiam haeredis nee terrae suae

STEPHEN LANGTON 99

XXXII. We will not retain the lands of those
who have been convicted of felony, excepting for
one year and one day, and then they shall be given
up to the lord of the fee.

XXXIII. All Kydells (weirs) for the future shall
be quite removed out of the Thames, and the
Medway, and through all England, excepting upon
the sea coast.

XXXIV. The writ which is called Praecipe, for
the future shall not be granted to any one of any
tenement, by which a free-man may lose his court.

XXXV. There shall be one measure of wine
throughout all our kingdom, and one measure of
ale, and one measure of corn; namely, the quarter
of London ; and one breadth of dyed cloth, and of
russets, and of halberjects, namely, two ells within
the lists. Also it shall be the same with weights as
with measures.

XXXVI. Nothing shall be given or taken for
the future for the Writ of Inquisition of life or
limb; but it shall be given without charge, and
not denied.

XXXVII. If any hold of us by Fee-Farm, or
Socage, or Burgage, and hold land of another by
Military Service, we will not have the custody of
the heir, nor of his lands, which are of the fee of

ioo STEPHEN LANGTON

est de feodo alterius, occasione illius Feodi-Firmae,
vel Socagii, vel Burgagii; nee habebibimus custo-
diam illius Feodi-Firmae, vel Socagii, vel Burgagii,
nisi ipsi Feodi-Firma debeat Servitium Militare.

Nos non habebimus custodiam haeredis vel terrae
alicujus, quam tenet de alio per Servitium Militare,
occasione Parve Serjanterie quam tenet de nobis
per servitium reddendi nobis cultellos, vel sagittas,
vel hujusmodi.

XXXVIII. Nullus Ballivus ponat de caetero
aliquem ad legem, simplici loquela sua, sine testibus
fidelibus ad hoc inductis.

XXXIX. Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel im-
prisonetur, aut dissaisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut
exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur; nee super
eum ibimus, nee super eum mittemus, nisi per
legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem
terrae.

XL. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differi-
mus, rectum aut justitiam.

XLI. Omnes Mercatores habeant salvum et secu-
rum exire ab Anglia, et venire in Angliam, morari
et ire per Angliam, tarn per terram quam per
aquam, ad emendum et vendendum, sine omnibus
malis toltis, per antiquas et rectas consuetudines ;
praeterquam in tempore guerrae, et si sint de terra

STEPHEN LANGTON 101

another, on account of that Fee-Farm, or Socage,
or Burgage ; nor will we have the custody of the
Fee-Farm, Socage or Burgage, unless the Fee-Farm
owe Military Service.

We will not have the custody of the heir, nor of
the lands of any one, which he holds of another by
Military Service, on account of any Petty-Sergeantry
which he holds of us by the service of giving us
daggers, or arrows, or the like.

XXXVIII. No Bailiff, for the future, shall put
any man to his law, upon his own simple affirma-
tion, without credible witnesses produced for that
purpose.

XXXIX. No freeman shall be seized, or im-
prisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any
way destroyed; nor will we condemn him, nor will
we commit him to prison, excepting by the legal
judgment of his peers, or by the laws of the land.

XL. To none will we sell, to none will we deny,
to none will we delay right or justice.

XLI. All Merchants shall have safety and security
in coming into England, and going out of England,
and in staying and in travelling through England,
as well by land as by water, to buy and sell, without
any unjust exactions, according to ancient and right
customs, excepting in the time of war, and if they

102 STEPHEN LANGTON

• in

contra nos guerrina : et si tales inveniantur
terra nostra in principio guerrae, attachientur sine
dampno corporum et rerum, donee sciatur a nobis,
vel Capitali Justiciario nostro, quomodo Mercatores
terrae nostrae tractentur, qui tune invenientur in
terra contra nos guerrina ; et si nostri salvi sint ibi,
alii salvi sint in terra nostra.

XLII. Liceat unicuique de caetero, exire de regno
nostro, et redire salvo et secure per terram et per
aquam, salva fide nostra, nisi tempore guerrae, per
aliquod breve tempus, propter communem utili-
tatem regni; exceptis imprisonatis et utlagatis,
secundum legem regni; et gentae de terra contra
nos guerrina, et Mercatoribus de quibus fiat sicut
praedictum est.

XLIII. Si quis tenuerit de aliqua escaeta, sicut
de Honore de Wallingeford ; Notingehamiae, Bono-
nii, Lancastriae, vel de aliis escaetis quae sunt in
manu nostra, et sunt Baroniae, et obierit, haeres
ejus non det aliud relevium, nee faciat aliud nobis
servitium quam faceret Baroni, si Baronia ilia esset
in manu Baronis ; et nos eodem modo earn tenebimus
quo Baro earn tenuit.

XLIV. Homines qui manent extra forestam, non
veniant, de caetero, coram Justiciariis nostris de

STEPHEN LANGTON 103

be of a country at war against us : and if such are
found in our land at the beginning of a war, they
shall be apprehended without injury of their bodies
and goods, until it be known to us, or to our Chief
Justiciary, how the Merchants of our country are
treated who are found in the country at war against
us; and if ours be in safety there, the others shall
be in safety in our land.

XLII. It shall be lawful to any person, for the
future, to go out of our kingdom, and to return,
safely and securely, by land or by water, saving
his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for
some short space, for the common good of the
kingdom, excepting prisoners and outlaws, according
to the laws of the land, and of the people of the
nation at war against us, and Merchants who shall
be treated as it is said above.

XLIII. If any hold of any escheat, as of the
Honour of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne,
Lancaster, or of other escheats which are in our
hand, and are Baronies, and shall die, his heir shall
not give any other relief, nor do any other service
to us, than he should have done to the Baron, if
that Barony had been in the hands of the Baron;
and we will hold in the same manner that the Baron
held it.

XLIV. Men who dwell without the Forest, shall
not come, for the future, before our Justiciaries of

104 STEPHEN LANGTON

Foresta, per communes summonitiones ; nisi sint
in placito, vel plegii alicujus, vel aliquorum qui
attachiati sint pro Foresta.

XLV. Nos non faciemus Justiciaries, Constabu-
laries, Vicecomites, vel Ballivos, nisi de talibus qui
sciant legem regni, et earn bene velint observare.

XLVI. Omnes Barones qui fundaverunt Abbatias,
unde habent cartas Regum Angliae, vel antiquam
tenuram, habeant earum custodiam cum vacaverint,
sicut habere debent.

XLVII. Omnes Forestae quae afforestate sunt
tempore nostro, statim de afforestentur ; et ita fiat
de Ripariis quae per nos tempore nostro posite sunt
in defense.

XLVIII. Omnes males consuetudines de Forestis
et Warrennis, et de Forestariis et Warrennariis,
Vicecomitibus et eorum ministris, Ripariis et
earum custotibus, statim inquirantur in quolibet
comitatu, per duodecim Milites juratos de eodem
comitatu, qui debent eligi per probos homines
ejusdem comitatus, et infra quadraginta dies post
inquisitionem factam, penitus, ita quod nunquam
revocentur, deleantur per eosdem, ita quod nos hoc
prius sciamus vel Justiciarius noster, si in Anglia
non fuerimus.

STEPHEN LANGTON 105

the Forest on a common summons ; unless they be
parties in a plea, or sureties for some person or
persons who are attached for the Forest.

XLV. We will not make Justiciaries, Constables,
Sheriffs or Bailiffs, excepting of such as know the
laws of the land, and are well disposed to observe
them.

XLVI. All Barons who have founded Abbeys,
which they hold by charters from the Kings of
England, or by ancient tenure, shall have the
custody of them when they become vacant, as they
ought to have.

XLVII. All Forests which have been made in
our time, shall be immediately disforested; and it
shall be so done with Water-banks, which have
been fenced in by us during our reign.

XLVIII. All evil customs of Forests and Warrens,
and of Foresters and Warrenners, Sheriffs, and
their officers, Water-banks and their keepers, shall
immediately be inquired into by twrelve Knights of
the same county, upon oath, who shall be elected
by good men of the same county ; and within forty
days after the inquisition is made, they shall be
altogether destroyed by them, never to be restored ;
provided that this be notified to us before it is done,
or to our Justiciary, if we be not in England.

io6 STEPHEN LANGTON

XLIX. Omnes obsides et cartas statim reddemus
quae libertate fuerunt nobis ab Anglicis in securi-
tatem pacis, vel fidelis servitii.

L. Nos amovebimus penitus de balliis parentes
Gerardi de Atyes, quod de caetero nullam habeant
balliam in Anglia ; Engelardum de Cygonii, Andream,
Petrum, et Gyonem de Cancelli, Gyonem de Cygonii,
Galfridum de Martini, et fratres ejus, Philippum
Marci, et fratres ejus, et Galfridum nepotem ejus,
et totam sequelam eorumdem.

LI. Et statim post pacis reformationem, amovebi-
mus de regno omnes alienigenas milites, balistarios,
servientes stipendarios, qui venerint cum equis et
armis ad nocumentum regni.

LII. Si quis fuerit dissaisitus vel elongatus per
nos, sine legali judicio parium suorum, de terris
castallis, libertatibus, vel jure suo, statim ea ei
restituemus ; et si contentio super hoc orta fuerit,
tune inde fiat per judicium viginti quinque Baronum,
de quibus fit mentio inferius in securitate pacis.
De omnibus autem illis de quibus aliquis dissaisitus
fuerit, vel elongatus, sine legali judicio parium
suorum, per Henricum Regem patrem nostrum, vel
per Richardum Regem fratrem nostrum, quae in

STEPHEN LANGTON 107

XLIX. We will immediately restore all hostages
and charters, which have been delivered to us by
the English, in security of the peace and of their
faithful service.

L. We will remove from their bailiwicks the
relations of Gerard de Athyes, so that, for the
future, they shall have no bailiwick in England;
Engelard de Cygony, Andrew, Peter, and Gyone
de Chaucell, Gyone de Cygony, Geoffrey de Martin,
and his brothers, Philip Mark, and his brothers,
and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers.

LI. And immediately after the conclusion of the
peace, we will remove out of the kingdom all
foreign knights, crossbow-men, and stipendiary
soldiers, who have come with horses and arms to
the molestation of the kingdom.

LII. If any have been disseised or dispossessed
by us, without a legal verdict of their peers, of their
lands, castles, liberties, or rights, we will immediately
restore these things to them; and if any dispute
shall arise on this head, then it shall be determined
by the verdict of the twenty-five Barons, of whom
mention is made below, for the security of the peace.
Concerning all those things of which any one hath
been disseised or dispossessed, without the legal
verdict of his peers by King Henry our father, or
King Richard our brother, which we have in our

io8 STEPHEN LANGTON

manu nostra habemus, vel quae alii tenent quae
nos oporteat warantizare respectum habebimus
usque ad communem terminum Crucae Signatorum ;
exceptis illis de quibus placitum motum fuit, vel
inquisitio facta per praeceptum nostrum, ante sus-
ceptionem Crucis nostrae; cum autem redierimus
de peregrinatione nostra, vel si forte remanserimus
a peregrinatione nostra statim inde plenam justitiam
exhibebimus.

LIII. Eundem autem respectum habebimus, et
eodern modo de justitia exhibenda, de forestis
deafforestandis, vel remansuris forestis quas Henricus
pater noster, vel Ricardus frater noster afforesta-
verunt; et de custodiis terrarum quae sunt de
alieno feodo, cujusmodi custodias hucusque habui-
mus; occasione feodo quod aliquis de nobis tenuit
per Servitium Militare ; et de Abbatiis quae fundate
fuerint in feodo alterius quam nostro, in quibus
dominus feodi dixerit se jus habere : et cum redieri-
mus, vel si remanserimus a peregrinatione nostra,
super hiis conquerentibus pleplenam justitiam statim
exhibebimus.

LIV. Nullus capiatur nee imprisonetur propter
appellum feminae de morte alterius, quam viri sui.

LV. Omnes fines qui in juste, et contra legem
terrae facti, sunt nobiscum, et omnia amerciamenta

STEPHEN LANGTON 109

hand, or others hold with our warrants, we shall
have respite, until the common term of the Crois-
aders, excepting those concerning which a plea had
been moved, or an inquisition taken, by our precept,
before our taking the Cross ; but as soon as we shall
return from our expedition, or if, by chance, we
should not go upon our expedition, we will imme-
diately do complete justice therein.

LIII. The same respite will we have, and the
same justice shall be done, concerning the dis-
forestation of the forests, or the forests which
remain to be disforested, which Henry our father,
or Richard our brother, have afforested; and the
same concerning the wardship of lands which are in
another's fee, but the wardship of which we have
hitherto had, occasioned by any of our fees held
by Military Service; arid for Abbeys founded in
any other fee than our own, in which the Lord of
the fee hath claimed a right; and when we shall
have returned, or if we shall stay from our expedi-
tion, we shall immediately do complete justice in
all these pleas.

LIV. No man shall be apprehended or imprisoned
on the appeal of a woman, for the death of any other
man than her husband.

LV. All fines that have been made by us unjustly,
or contrary to the laws of the land ; and all amercia-

no STEPHEN LANGTON

facta injuste, et contra legem terrae, omnino con-
donentur, vel fiat inde per judicium viginti quinque
Baronum de quibus fit mentio inferius in securitate
pacis, vel per judicium majoris partis eorumdem,
una cum praedicto Stephano, Cantuariensis Archi-
episcopo, si interesse potent, et aliis quos secum ad
hoc vocare voluerit; et si interesse non poterit,
nihilominus procedat negotium sine eo; ita quod
si aliquis, vel aliqui, de praedictis viginti quinque
Baronibus, fuerint in simili querela, amoveantur,
quantum ad hoc judicium, et alii loco illorum per
residues de eisdem viginti quinque tantum ad hoc
faciendum electi et jurati, substituantur.

LVI. Si nos dissaisivimus vel elongavimus Walen-
ses de terris, vel libertatibus, vel rebus aliis, sine
legali judicio parium suorum in Anglia, vel in
Wallia, eis statim reddantur; et si contentio super
hoc orta fuerit, tune inde fiat in Marchia per judi-
cium parium suorum; de tenementis Angliae,
secundum legem Angliae; de tenementis Walliae,
secundum legem Walliae; de tenementis Marchiae,
secundum legem Marchiae. Idem facient Walenses
nobis et nostris.

LVII. De omnibus autem illis de quibus aliquis

STEPHEN LANGTON in

ments that have been imposed unjustly, or contrary
to the laws of the land, shall be wholly remitted,
or ordered by the verdict of the twenty-five Barons,
of whom mention is made below, for the security of
the peace, or by the verdict of the greater part of
them, together with the aforesaid Stephen, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and
others whom he may think fit to bring with him;
and if he cannot be present, the business shall
proceed, notwithstanding, without him; but so
that if any one or more of the aforesaid twenty-five
Barons have a similar plea, let them be removed
from that particular trial, and others elected and
sworn by the residue of the same twenty-five, be
substituted in their room, only for that trial.

LVI. If we have disseised or dispossessed any
Welshmen of their lands, or liberties, or other things,
without a legal verdict of their peers, in England
or in Wales, they shall be immediately restored to
them ; and if any dispute shall arise upon this head,
then let it be determined in the Marches by the
verdict of their peers; for a tenement of England,
according to the law of England, for a tenement of
Wales, according to the law of Wales, for a tenement
of the Marches, according to the law of the Marches.
The Welsh shall do the same to us and to our
subjects.

LVI I. Also concerning those things of which any

ii2 STEPHEN LANGTON

Walensium dissaisitus fuerit, vel elongatus, sine
legali judicio parium suorum, per Henricum Regem
patrem nostrum, vel Richardum Regem fratrem
nostrum, quae nos in maim nostra habemus, vel
quae alii tenent quae nos oporteat warantizare,
respectum habebimus usque ad communem ter-
minum Crucae Signatorum, illis exceptis, de quibus
placitum mo turn fuit, vel inquisitio fact a per prae-
ceptum nostrum, ante susceptionem crucis nostrae.
Cum autem redierimus, vel si forte remanserimus a
peregrinatione nostra, statim eis inde plenam justi-
tiam, exhibebumus secundum leges Wallensium, et
partes praedictas.

LVIII. Nos reddemus filium Lenelini, statim, et
omnes obsides de Wallia, et cartas quae nobis
libertate fuerunt in securitatem pacis.

LIX. Nos faciemus Alexando Regi Scottorum,
de sororibus suis, et obsidibus reddendis, et liber-
tatibus suis, et jure suo, secundum formam in qua
faciemus aliis Baronibus nostris Angliae, nisi aliter
esse debeat per cartas quas habemus de Gulielmo
patrae ipsius quondam Rege Scottorum; et hoc
erit per judicium parium suorum in curia nostra.

LX. Omnes autem istas consuetudines praedictas,
et libertates quas nos concessimus in regno nostro
tenendas, quantum ad nos pertinet erga nostros,

STEPHEN LANGTON 113

Welshman hath been disseised or dispossessed
without the legal verdict of his peers, by King
Henry our father, or King Richard our brother,
which we have in our hand, or others hold with
our warrant, we shall have respite, until the common
term of the Croisaders, excepting for those con-
cerning which a plea had been moved, or an in-
quisition made, by our precept, before our taking
the Cross. But as soon as we shall return from our
expedition, or if, by chance, we should not go upon
our expedition, we shall immediately do complete
justice therein, according to the laws of Wales, and
the parts aforesaid.

LVIII. We will immediately deliver up the son
of Llewelin, and all the hostages of Wales, and
release them from their engagements which were
made with us, for the security of the peace.

LIX. We shall do to Alexander King of Scotland,
concerning the restoration of his sisters and hostages,
and his liberties and rights, according to the form
in which we act to our other Barons of England,
unless it ought to be otherwise by the charters
which we have from his father William, the late
King of Scotland; and this shall be by the verdict
of his peers in our court.

LX. Also all these customs and liberties afore-
said, which we have granted to be held -in our
kingdom, for so much of it as belongs to as, JfiK'o'UT

1

*
-.

H4 STEPHEN LANGTON

omnes de regno nostro, tarn clerici quam laici
observent, quantum ad se pertinet erga suos.

LXI. Cum autem pro DEO et ad emendationem
regni nostri, et ad melius sopiendum discordiam
inter nos et Barones nostros ortam, haec omnia
praedicta concesserimus, violentes ea Integra et
firma stabilitate in perpetuum gaudere, facimus et
concedemus eis securitatem subscriptam; videlicet,
quod Barones eligent viginti quinque Barones de
regno, quos voluerint, qui debeant pro totis viribus
suis, observare, tenere, et facere observari, pacem
et libertates quas eis concessimus et hac presente
carta nostra confirmavimus : ita, scilicet, quod si
nos, vel Justiciarius noster, vel ballivi nostri, vel
aliquis de ministris nostris, in aliquo erga aliquem
deliquerimus, vel aliquem articulorum pacis aut
securitatis transgressi fuerimus, et delictum osten-
sum fuerit quatuor Baronibus de praedictis viginti
quinque Baronibus, illi quatuor Barones accedent
ad nos, vel ad Justiciarium nostrum, si fuerimus
extra regnum, proponentes nobis excessum, petent,
ut excessum ilium sine dilatione faciamus emendari.
Et si nos excessum non emendaverimus, vel si
fuerimus regnum, Justiciarius noster non emenda-
verit, infra tempus quadraginta dierum, compu-
tandum a tempore quo monstratum fuerit nobis,

STEPHEN LANGTON 115

subjects, as well clergy as laity, shall observe towards
their tenants as far as concerns them.

LXI. But since we have granted all these things
aforesaid, for GOD, and for the amendment of our
kingdom, and for the better extinguishing the discord
which has arisen between us and our Barons, we
being desirous that these things should possess
entire and unshaken stability for ever, give and
grant to them the security underwritten; namely,
that the Barons may elect twenty-five Barons of
the kingdom, whom they please, who shall with
their whole power, observe, keep, and cause to be
observed, the peace and liberties which we have
granted to them, and have confirmed by this our
present charter, in this manner; that is to say, if
we, or our Justiciary, or our bailiffs, or any of our
officers, shall have injured any one in anything, or
shall have violated any article of the peace or
security, and the injury shall have been shown to
four of the aforesaid twenty-five Barons, the said
four Barons shall come to us, or to our Justiciary if
we be out of the kingdom, and making known to
us the excess committed, petition that we cause
that excess to be redressed without delay. And
if we shall not have redressed the excess, or, if we
have been out of the kingdom, our Justiciary shall
not have redressed it within the term of forty days,
computing from the time when it shall have been

n6 STEPHEN LANGTON

vel Justiciario nostro, si extra regnum fuerimus,
praedicti quatuor Barones referant causam illam ad
residues de illis viginti quinque Baronibus, et illi,
viginti quinque Barones, cum communa totius
terrae, distringent et gravabunt nos modis omnibus
quibus poterunt; scilicet, per captionem castrorum,
terrarum, possessionem, et aliis modis quibis pote-
runt, donee fuerit emendatum secundum arbitrium
eorum; salva persona nostra, et Reginae nostrae,
et liberorum nostrorum; et cum fuerit emendatum,
intendent nobis sicut prius fecerunt. Et qui-
cumque voluerit de terra, juret quod ad praedicta
omnia exequenda, parebit mandatis praedictorum
viginti quinque Baronum, et quod gravabit nos pro
posse suo cum ipsis : et nos publice et libere damus
licentiam jurandi cuilibet qui jurare voluerit, et
nulli unquam jurare prohibebimus. Omnes autem
illos de terra, qui per se et sponte sua noluerint
jurare viginti quinque Baronibus, de distringendo
et gravando nos cum eis, faciemus jurare eosdem de
mandate nostro, sicut praedictum est. Et si aliquis
de viginti quinque Baronibus decesserit, vel a
terra recesserit, vel aliquo alio modo impeditus
fuerit, quominus ista praedicta possent exequi, qui
residui fuerint de praedictis viginti quinque Baroni-
bus, eligant alium loco ipsius, pro arbitrio suo, qui

us.

STEPHEN LANGTON 117

made known to us, or to our Justiciary if we have
been out of the kingdom, the aforesaid four Barons
shall lay that cause before the residue of the twenty-
five Barons; and they, the twenty-five Barons,
with the community of the whole land, shall distress
and harass us by all the ways in which they are
able; that is to say, by the taking of our castles,
lands, and possessions, and by any other means in
their power, until the excess shall have been re-
dressed, according to their verdict ; saving harmless
our person, and the persons of our Queen and
children; and when it hath been redressed, they
shall behave to us as they have done before. And
whoever of our land pleaseth, may swear, that he
will obey the commands of the aforesaid twenty-
five Barons, in accomplishing all the things afore-
said, and that with them he will harass us to the
utmost of his power; and we publicly and freely
give leave to every one to swear who is willing to
swear; and we will never forbid any to swear.
But all those of our land, who, of themselves, and
of their own accord, are unwilling to swear to the
twenty-five Barons, to distress and harass us to-
gether with them, we will compel them by our
command, to swear as aforesaid. And if any one
of the twenty-five Barons shall die, or remove out
of the land, or in any other way shall be prevented
from executing the things above said, they who
remain of the twenty-five Barons shall elect another

n8 STEPHEN LANGTON

simili modo erit juratus, quo et caeteri. In omnibus
autem, quae istis viginti quinque Baronibus com-
mit tunter exequenda, si forte ipsi viginti quinque
presentes fuerint, et inter se super re aliqua discor-
daverint, vel aliqui ex eis summoniti nolint, vel
nequeant interesse, ratum habeatur et firmum,
quod major pars eorum, qui presentes fuerint,
provident, vel praeceperit; ac si omnes viginti
quinque in hoc consensissent : et praedicti viginti
quinque jurent quod omnia antedicta fideliter obser-
vabunt, et pro toto posse suo facient observari. Et
nos nihil impetrabimus ab aliquo, per nos, nee per
alium, per quod aliqua istarum concessionum et
libertatum revocetur vel minuatur. Et si aliquid
tale impetratum fuerit, irritum sit et inane; et
numquam eo utemur, per nos, nee per alium.

LXII. Et omnes malas voluntates, indignationes,
et rancores ortos, inter nos et homines nostros,
clericos et laicos, a tempore discordiae, plene omni-
bus remisimus et condonavimus. Praeterea, omnes
transgressiones factas occasione ejusdem discordiae,
a Pascha anno regni nostri sextodecimo, usque ad
pacem reformatam, plene remisimus omnibus clericis
et laicis, et quantum ad nos pertinet, plene con-

STEPHEN LANGTON 119

in his place, according to their own pleasure, who
shall be sworn in the same manner as the rest. In
all those things which are appointed to be done by
these twenty-five Barons, if it happen that all the
twenty-five have been present, and have differed
in their opinions about anything, or if some of them
had been summoned, would not, or could not be
present, that which the greater part of those wrho
were present shall have provided and decreed,
shall be held as firm and as valid, as if all the twenty-
five had agreed to it ; and the aforesaid twenty-
five shall swear, that they will faithfully observe,
and, with all their power, cause to be observed,
all the things mentioned above. And we will
obtain nothing from any one, by ourselves, nor by
another, by which any of these concessions and
liberties may be revoked or diminished. And if
any such thing shall have been obtained, let it be
void and null ; and we will never use it, neither by
ourselves nor by another.

LXII. And we have fully remitted and pardoned
to all men, all the ill-will, rancour, and resent-
ments, which have arisen between us and our
subjects, both clergy and laity, from the commence-
ment of the discord. Moreover we have fully
remitted to all the clergy and laity, and as far as
belongs to us, have fully pardoned all transgressions
committed by occasion of the said discord, from
Easter, in the sixteenth year of our reign, until the

120 STEPHEN LANGTON

donavimus. Et, insuper, fecimus eis fieri literas
testimoniales patentes domini Stephani Cantuariensis
Archiepiscopi, Domini Henrici Dubliniensis Archi-
episcopi, et Episcoporum praedictorum, et Magistri
Pandulphi, super securitate ista et concessionibus
praefatis.

LXIII. Quare, volumus, et firmiter praecipimus,
quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit ; et quod homines
in regno nostro habeant et teneant omnes praefatas
libertates, jura, et concessiones, bene et in pace,
libere et quiete, plene et integre, sibi et haeredibus
suis, de nobis et haeredibus nostris, in omnibus
rebus et locis, in perpetuum, sicut praedictum est.
Juratum est autem, tarn ex parte nostra, quam ex
parte Baronum, quod haec omnia supradicta bona
fide, et sine malo ingenio servabuntur. Testibus
supradictis, et multis aliis. Data per manum
nostram, in Prato quod vocatur Runimede, inter
Windeles horum et Stanes, quintodecimo die Junii,
anno regni nostri septimo decimo.

STEPHEN LANGTON 121

conclusion of the peace. And, moreover, we have
caused to be made to them testimonial letters,
patent of the Lord Stephen, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the Lord Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, and of
the aforesaid Bishops, and of Master Pandulph con-
cerning this security, and the aforesaid concessions.

LXIII. Wherefore, our will is, and we firmly
command that the Church of England be free, and
that the men in our kingdom have and hold the
aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and
in peace, freely and quietly, fully and entirely, to
them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all
things and places, for ever as is aforesaid. It is
also sworn, both on our part, and on that of the
Barons, that all the aforesaid shall be observed in
good faith, and without any evil intention. Wit-
nessed by the above and many others. Given by
our hand in the Meadow which is called Running-
mead, between Windsor and Staines, this I5th day
of June, in the lyth year of our reign.

The Great Seal of England was then appended
to Magna Charta, which was likewise confirmed by
the King's solemn oath; but its greatest security
was that twenty-five Barons were elected by the
rest, to enforce the observance of all which this
instrument contained. The Peers who were en-
trusted with this authority were certainly some of

122 STEPHEN LANGTON

the most celebrated of their time, both with regard
to descent, to valour, and to intellectual endow-
ments : their names were —

Richard de Clare, Earl of Clare.

William de Fortibus, Earl of Aumerle.

Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Gloucester.

Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester.

Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.

Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk.

Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford.

William Mareschall, junior.

Robert Fitz- Walter.

Gilbert de Clare.

Eustace de Vesey.

William de Hardell, Mayor of London.

William de Mowbray.

Geoffrey de Say.

Roger de Mumbezon (Mount Begon).

William de Huntingfield.

Robert de Ros.

John de Lacy, the Constable of Chester.

William de Albeniac.

Richard de Percy.

William Malet.

John Fitz-Robert.

William de Lanvalay.

Hugh Bigod.

Richard de Muntfitchet.

STEPHEN LANGTON 123

As John had now conceded to all the claims which
the discontent of his Barons could devise, or their
hatred demand, it might be expected that the re-
mainder of his reign was passed with the faithful
allegiance and love of his subjects, but this was
not the case; they feared the King might yet
retract his engagements, and they demanded, says
Blackstone, " a real and substantial security for
his performance of the articles of the Charter;
nothing less than the custody of the City and Tower
of London, till August 15, then next ensuing, and
afterwards till the Charter should be carried into
execution." To this the King also consented, if
compliance in his circumstances may be called a
consent, and the custody was actually delivered.

The Covenant which thus originated, contained
a particular account of the Writs for electing the
twelve Knights, who were to rectify the Forest
laws and customs; these were dated on June 19,
which was four days after the conclusion of Magna
Charta, and the period when the assembly was dis-
missed. These writs, or Letters of Election, as
they are called by the Covenant, were a material
part of the newly-granted liberties, inasmuch as
they gave to the Barons the power of watching
over the pure administration of the enactments of
Magna Charta.

124 STEPHEN LANGTON

TRANSLATION OF THE COVENANT

made between

KING JOHN AND His BARONS OF ENGLAND
A.D. 1215.

This is the Covenant made between our Lord
John, King of England, on the one part; and
Robert Fitzwalter, elected Marshal of God and of
the Holy Church in England, and Richard Earl of
Clare, Geoffrey Earl of Essex and Gloucester,
Roger Bigod Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, Saher
Earl of Winchester, Robert Earl of Oxford, Henry
Earl of Hereford, and the Barons under- writ ten.

That is to say —

William Marshall the younger,
Eustace de Vesey,
William de Mowbray,
John Fitz-Robert,
Roger de Mont Begon,
William de Lanvalay,

and other Earls and Barons, and Freemen of the
whole kingdom, on the other part : namely, That
they the Earls and Barons and others before written,
shall hold the custody of the City of London in
bail from our Lord the King ; saving that they shall

STEPHEN LANGTON 125

clearly render all the debts and revenues within
the same, to our Lord the King, until the term of
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the
seventeenth year of his reign.

And the Lord of Canterbury shall hold in like
manner of bail from our Lord the King, the custody
of the Tower of London, to the aforesaid term;
saving to the City of London its liberties and free
customs, and taking his oath in the keeping of the
said Tower, that our Lord the King shall in the
meanwhile not place a guard nor other forces in
the aforesaid City, nor in the Tower of London.

And that also within the aforesaid term, the
oaths to the twenty-five Barons be tendered through-
out all England as it is contained in the Charter
granted concerning the liberties and security of
the kingdom; or to the attornies of the twenty-
five Barons as it is contained in the letters granted
concerning the election of twelve knights for
abolishing evil customs of the forests and 'others.

And, moreover, within the said term, all the
other demands which the Earls, Barons, and other
free-men do ask of our Lord the King which he
himself has declared to be granted to them, or which
by the twenty-five Barons, or by the greater part
of them shall be judged proper to be granted, are
to be given, according to the tenor of the said
Charter.

And if these things shall be done, or if our Lord

126 STEPHEN LANGTON

the King on his part shall agree to do them, within
the term limited, then the City and Tower of London
shall at the same term be delivered up to our Lord
the King, saving always to the aforesaid City its
liberties and free customs as it is before written.

And if these things shall not be done, and if our
Lord the King shall not agree to do them within
the period aforesaid, the Barons shall hold the
aforesaid City and the Lord Archbishop the Tower
of London, until the aforesaid deeds shall be com-
pleted.

And in the meanwhile, all of both parts shall
recover the castles, lands, and towns, which have
been taken in the beginning of the war that has
arisen between our Lord the King and the Barons.

LANGTON, THE KING'S COMMISSIONER AT
RUNNYMEDE

Langton appeared at Runnymede as a com-
missioner on the King's side, and his influence
must be sought, it is said, in those clauses of the
Charter which differ from the original petitions of
the barons. And of these the most striking is
that which confirms the liberties of the Church;
and this is chiefly remarkable for its moderation.

The Charter contains the following : " Know
that, looking to God and the advancement of holy
Church, and for the reform of our realm we have

STEPHEN LANGTON 127

granted as underwritten by advice of our vener-
able father, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
primate of all England, and Cardinal of the holy
Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin,
etc. ; of Master Pandulph, sub-deacon and member
of the household of our lord the Pope — and of the
illustrious men — Earls of Pembroke, Salisbury,
Arundel, and others, our liegemen."

But though King John had signed the Charter
he never meant to keep it. The skilfully worded
provisions of that famous Charter, the Magna
Charta of the year 1215, are sacred to this day as
the foundation of all our liberties as Englishmen.
" Entire as at this hour in which it was written," says
Knight in Old English Museum of Popular Anti-
quities, " it is preserved, not for reference or doubtful
questions of right, not to be proclaimed at market
crosses or to be read in churches as in the time of
Edward the First, but for the gratification of a
just curiosity and an honest national pride. The
humblest in the land may look upon that document,
day by day, in the British Museum, which was
written almost 700 years ago; and will find it to
be the foundation of statute upon statute, and of
what is as stringent as statute, the common law,
through which for nearly 700 years we have been
struggling to breathe the breath of freedom, and
we have not struggled in vain."

The first clause of the Charter reads : " That the

128 STEPHEN LANGTON

Church of England be free and hold her rights
entire, and her liberties inviolate."

The freedom of electing bishops by the dean and
chapters is recognised as the most necessary and
fundamental privilege of the Church of England.
Archbishop Langton had good cause to know how
necessary it was to make this declaration; he had
seen enough of the oppressive and cruel treatment
of the Church, both by popes and kings, to make
him feel the necessity of such a statement. The
legal and administrative changes of Henry the
Second and of Archbishop Walter left many loop-
holes for the abuse of authority by royal officials
(1194-1214 A.D.). The Church, finally, complained
that the right of free and canonical election, which
Henry the Second had guaranteed, was practically
withdrawn, and that the property of the clergy, both
in land and in movables, was now taxed without
regard to custom or the principles of canon law.

This was the only clause of importance to the
Church, and was evidently added at the request
of Archbishop Stephen Langton, and being placed
both at the beginning and at the end of the Great
Charter, makes it very emphatic, and so is worth
repeating—

In primis concessione. Deo et hac presenti
Carta nostra confinnasse, pro nobis et heredibus
nostris in perpetuum. Quod Anglicana ecclesia

STEPHEN LANGTON 129

libera sit, et habeat jura sua Integra, et libertates
suas illesas.

" In the first place we have granted to God and
by this our present charter confirmed for us and our
heirs for ever that the English Church shall be free
and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties
inviolate."

And at the end —

Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod
Anglicana ecclesia libera sit et quod homines in
regno nostro habeant et teneant omnes praefatas
libertates jura, et concessiones.

" Wherefore it is our will and we firmly enjoin,
that the English Church be free, and that the men
in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid
liberties, rights and concessions."

The freedom of the English Church, not the Irish
Church, then is referred to, because at the time of
the Great Charter, 1215, the kingdom of Ireland
had no share in this liberty, but by a law enacted
in 1494, the eleventh year of Henry the Seventh,
called Poyning's law, it was decreed that all previous
Statutes of England should be extended into that
country.

It is, however, probable that the Army of God
and Holy Church had omitted to discuss ecclesi-
astical grievances, not from any indifference to their

130 STEPHEN LANGTON

settlement, but in the belief that the Archbishop
needed no assistance. On either hypothesis the
moderation of the Archbishop and his colleagues
is remarkable. They ask nothing beyond a con-
firmation of the Church's ancient liberties, and of
the right of free canonical election which John had
already conceded in a separate charter.

The " Rights " of the Church, although remaining
theoretically unalterable from the days of King
Stephen, felt the pressure directed by Henry's
energetic arm against all claims of privilege. Rights,
theoretically the same, says McKechnie, shrank to
smaller practical limits when measured against the
strength of Henry as compared with the weakness
of Stephen. Canonical election thus remained, at
the close of the reign of Henry the Second, the same
farce it had been in the days of Henry the First.
The election lay with the Chapter of the vacant
See, but the King told them plainly to elect.

King John's rash provocation, followed by his
quick and cowardly retreat, gave Langton the
opportunity to compel a new definition of the
frontier between the spiritual and the temporal
powers.

SOCIAL ARTICLES OF MAGNA CHARTA

The essential clauses of Magna Charta, according
to Hallam, are those which protect the personal

STEPHEN LANGTON 131

liberty and property of all freemen, by giving
security from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary
despotism.

" No freeman," the charter says, " shall be seized,
or imprisoned, or outlawed, or in any way brought
to ruin; we will not go against any man, nor send
against him, save by legal judgment of his peers
(equals) .

'To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay right
or justice. No scutage or aid, taxes, shall be im-
posed in our realm save by the Common Council."

Justice, then, is no longer to be sold, denied or
delayed. The Court of Common Pleas, instead of,
as formerly, following the King's person in all his
progresses, is to be permanently fixed at West-
minster; assizes are to be held in the several
counties, and annual circuits are established. Of
peers — a provision which recognised a popular
tribunal as a check on the official judges, and may
be looked upon as the foundation of the writ of
Habeas Corpus. No one is to be indicted on rumours
or suspicion, but only on the evidence of witnesses.

Even the women were thought of, and the King
was no longer allowed to make rich widows marry
his friends in order that he might get some of their
money. But the best thing in Magna Charta was
that it protected the poor. It was declared that
no man whose goods were forfeited should lose his
means of making a living.

132 STEPHEN LANGTON

Other clauses of the Great Charter of English
liberty protected freemen and even villeins from
excessive fines. The villeins, who held lives by a
base and servile tenure, were not to be deprived of
their carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry.

POLITICAL ASPECT OF MAGNA CHARTA

It was probably by the bishops, Langton in
particular, and the legal members of the confederacy,
that the rights of the freeholder, says Stubbs
(Introduction to Rolls), were so carefully fenced
round with provisions. These men and their
successors led the Commons and acted for them
until the Reformation, with little discord and still
less jealousy of their rising influence, and it was
the extinction of this class which furnished their
natural leaders that threw the Church and nation
under the tyranny that followed the Wars of the
Roses.

The charter, notwithstanding the prominence
given to redress of feudal grievances, redressed
other grievances, just mentioned, as well. In this
the influence of the Church, and notably of its
primate, can be traced. Some little attention was
given to the rights of the under-tenants also, and
even to those of the merchants, while the villein
and the alien were not left entirely unprotected.

The Great Charter was not, of course, a complete

STEPHEN LANGTON 133

document, for it has required safeguards, such as
the Petition of Right, 1628 A.D., and the Habeas
Corpus Act, 1679 A-D- » but amongst its intrinsic
merits was that it made definite what had been
vague before. Definition is a valuable protection
for the weak against the strong ; whereas vagueness
increases the powers of the tyrant who can interpret
while he enforces the law.

In reality Magna Charta made few lasting in-
novations and asserted no new liberties ; the framers
desired no alteration in the fabric of the executive
or legislature.

The Great Charter is, then, the act of the united
nation, the Church, the barons, and the commons,
for the first time thoroughly at one. It is in form
only the act of the King — in substance and in
historical position it is the first effort of a corporate
life that has reached full consciousness, resolved
to act for itself and able to carry out the resolution.
The nature of the grievances of the nation is more
to be gathered from Magna Charta itself, which is
the first actual limitation of the royal prerogative,
than from the historians who have told the story.

Again, the Great Paper was a treaty of peace
between the King and his people, and so is a com-
plete national act. Stubbs, in Early Plantagenets ,
says that it is the first act of the kind, for it differs
from the charters issued by Henry the First,
Stephen and Henry the Second not only in its greater

134 STEPHEN LANGTON

fulness and perspicuity, but by having a distinct
machinery provided to carry it out.

Twenty-five barons were nominated, as we have
seen, to compel the King to fulfil his part, and
Stephen Langton was put in charge of the Tower of
London.

The foundations of English liberty were now laid,
which no less undeniably sowed the seeds of the
severance of the English Church from the Roman
obedience three centuries later. To Archbishop
Langton more than to any other one man the over-
throw of John's despotism was due. He had with-
stood the King and rescued the country from
tyranny.

So far as we are guided by historical testimony,
two great men, the pillars of our Church and State,
may be considered, says Stubbs, as entitled beyond
the rest to the glory of the monument, Magna
Charta or the Great Charter. Stephen Langton,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of
Pembroke. To their temperate zeal for a legal
Government, England was indebted during that
critical period for the two greatest blessings that
patriotic statesmen could confer: the establish-
ment of civil liberty upon an immovable basis, and
the preservation of national independence under
the ancient line of sovereigns, which richer men
were about to exchange for the dominion of France.

STEPHEN LANGTON 135

EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE BARONS

Satisfied with what they had accomplished at
Runnymede, the prelates and barons joyfully re-
turned home with their retainers, while the King,
who had laughed and joked whilst he signed the
charter, as soon as he got safely back to Windsor
gave vent to his rage and cried : " They have given
me twenty-five kings," and he didn't know how to
control himself.

A celebrated English historian speaks in the
following terms concerning the manner in which
the grant of Magna Charta preyed upon the health
and disposition of John —

"Great rejoicing," says Holinshed, "was made
for this conclusion of peace between the King and
his barons, the people judging that God had
touched the King's heart, and mollified it, whereby
happy days were come for the realm of England,
as though it had been delivered out of the
bondage of Egypt : but were much deceived, for
the King having condescended to make such
grant of liberties, far contrary to his mind, was
right sorrowful in his heart, cursed his mother that
bare him, the hour that he was born, and the paps
that gave him suck, wishing that he had received
death by violence of sword or knife, instead of

136 STEPHEN LANGTON

natural nourishment; he whetted his teeth, he did
bite now on one staff, and now on another, as he
walked, and oft brake the same in pieces when he
had done, and with such disordered behaviour and
furious gestures he uttered his grief, in such sort
that the noble men very well perceived the inclina-
tion of his inward affection concerning these things,
before the breaking up of the council, and, therefore,
sore lamented the state of the realm, guessing what
would come of his impatience and displeasant taking
of the matter."

The country would now soon have been in a
happier condition if all the King had promised had
been acted upon. But the mean-spirited King
never intended to keep his promise, for the ink, in
which his signature was made on the Great Charter,
was scarcely dry before he sent a special messenger
to Rome explaining that the first great act of Arch-
bishop Langton, whom Pope Innocent the Third
had imposed or inflicted upon him, was to defy the
(assumed) prerogative of the papacy in this country
by organising a rebellion against himself, King John,
the vassal of the Pope.

It is to be noted how John lays the blame on
Stephen Langton, and by this shows how powerful
and influential must the Archbishop's support have
been to the barons in their demand for the general
liberty-conferring charter.

STEPHEN LANGTON 137

When Innocent heard of Magna Charta he
furiously raged at the temerity of the barons, and
he issued a " bull," August 24, in which he annulled
and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself,
as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to
the dignity of the Apostolic See of Rome.

This " bull," with the seal of Innocent attached
to it, and preserved in the British Museum, con-
cludes : " We utterly reprobate and condemn any
agreement of this kind, forbidding, under ban of our
anathema, the aforesaid King to presume to observe
it, and the barons and their accomplices to exact its
performance."

REVOCATION OF MAGNA CHARTA

In order that John might obtain the assistance
of the Church of Rome, says Dr. Hook, the King
changed his party, and swore fealty to the Pope.

As the Primate of the Church of England was, at
the same time, a cardinal of the See of Rome, John
thought that the two Churches might be regarded
as one. This, however, was never the case. Within
our own memory most of the nations of Europe
fell under the dominion of the Emperor of the
French, the elder Bonaparte, who either forced
upon them his own code of legislation or made
his will their law. But, however much he might
himself believe the Empire to be one, the subdued

138 STEPHEN LANGTON

people, although they acquiesced in, and although
some among them may have approved of, the
usurpation, only awaited, with more or less of im-
patience, for the time when they might reassert
their nationality and independence. Even now,
when the papacy was in the ascendant, or rather
had reached its culminating point, throughout the
nations and the churches of Europe, the Church of
England remained distinct from the Church of
Rome. The Church of England sided with the
barons against a tyrannical king, the Church of
Rome supported the tyrant against the barons.

Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, was
the leader of the popular party, whose chief opponent
the Pope of Rome now became.

Why this attitude of the Pope ? It has been said
that the Pope might naturally sympathise more with
authority than with those in apparent authority
against it; that he was bound, moreover, by the
duty and interest to care for the rights of his vassal ;
and, assailed with reports from the King's side, he
might naturally and clearly be expected to take a
different course from Archbishop Langton's. There
is not a word here as to the probability of Innocent's
desire to advance the metropolitan See of Rome at
the cost of the metropolitan See of Canterbury.

Strange how the Pope, after supporting the
patriotic struggle for many years, by which he
was able to force the reluctant King John to his

STEPHEN LANGTON 139

knees, should now so quickly turn round, and at
the protest of a so generally well-known unreliable
monarch, try to take away from the people those
liberties already won by the Great Charter. Now
when the papal authority began to back the royal
tyranny, the barons determined to resist, and the
Church, having recovered, in Archbishop Langton,
its natural leader, resumed its ordinary attitude
as the supporter of freedom. The country saw
that the submission of John to Innocent placed its
liberty, temporally and spiritually, at his mercy,
and immediately demanded safeguards. Hence the
firmness of the English nobles. The Charter, the
whole Charter, and nothing but the Charter, should
be the basis and foundation of their allegiance or
obedience to the King.

John now recalled all the liberties which he had
granted to his subjects and which he had solemnly
sworn to observe; he was stronger now, being at
the head of a very large band of ravenous and
mercenary soldiers, who, incited by an enraged
king, were let loose against the estates, tenants,
manors, houses, parks of the barons, and spread
devastation and destruction over the whole of the
kingdom, from Dover to Berwick ; but the barons
stood firm to the charter.

140 STEPHEN LANGTON

WILLIAM DE ALBINI

Baron William de Albini, who became one of the
twenty-five Securities for the Great Charter, although
it may almost be questioned whether he were not
even then more on the part of the King than of
the barons, for when he was summoned by Robert
Fitz- Walter to attend the tournament adjourned
from Stamford to Hounslow Heath on June 29,
1215, he never attended, and it was not until after
the other barons had alarmed him by their messages
and censures, that he fortified Belvoir Castle, and
joined them at London. He was, however, received
with considerable joy, and Rochester Castle having
been delivered up to them by Stephen Langton,
Archbishop of Canterbury, he was appointed
governor; when, though he found it so utterly
destitute of provision as almost to induce his forces
to abandon it, he recruited and held it out until
famine, weakness, and midnight watching obliged
them to surrender to the King.

Matthew Paris relates of this baron that during
the siege, as John and some of his commanders
were one day viewing the castle, an excellent
archer asked him if he should shoot at the King
with an arrow which he then held ready; and
upon his answering "No," r* Why/' rejoined the
bowman, " he would not spare us if he had the

STEPHEN LANGTON 141

advantage." " God's will be done ! " answered
De Albini, " for He, and not the King, will dis-
pose of us." The siege having lasted three months,
and being attended with considerable loss, John
ordered that all the nobles in the castle should be
hanged; but the sentence being resolutely opposed
by Savaricus de Maloleone, one of his own chief
commanders, William de Albini and his son Odonel,
with several other barons, were sent prisoners to
Corfe and Nottingham castles. Whilst he remained
in the former of these fortresses, on the morrow
of Christmas Day, 1216, the King marched from
Nottingham to Langar, whence he sent a summons
for Belvoir Castle to surrender; adding that if
any conditions were insisted on, " the lord of it
should never eat more."

ARCHBISHOP LANGTON'S REFUSAL TO EXCOM-
MUNICATE THE BARONS

When Pope Innocent heard of the barons' atti-
tude to stand firmly by the charter he ordered
Archbishop Langton and the bishops to excom-
municate the barons, and he strongly condemned
the prelates for their action in promoting such
contempt of the Holy See of Rome. The bishops,
however, were becoming bolder, and refused to do
this. As soon as the Pope heard this he summoned
Langton and the bishops to Rome to a council

142 STEPHEN LANGTON

there, and, in their absence from England, he
peremptorily suspended them for their share in
bringing about the signing of the Great Charter.

When the proctors of the English king charged
the Primate, Langton, with aiding and abetting
the barons in their opposition to the King, the
Archbishop refused to reply or plead, and only
requested to be absolved from the sentence passed
on him in England. The Pope took counsel with
the other cardinals, with the result, says Cardinal
Gasquet, D.D., that he charged the laity and clergy
of the diocese of Canterbury not to obey their arch-
bishop " until such time as by his conduct he should
merit absolution."

In the following year Langton was absolved from
the suspension under which he lay, upon giving his
personal pledge not to return to England until the
disturbances were entirely over.

What is known of the Archbishop during the
sixteen months he stayed at Rome at this time?
Langton, notwithstanding his suspension, sat in
the Lateran Council held in November 1215 A.D.,
respecting which Cardinal Gasquet says, " but the
Archbishop took no part in the deliberations," or
rather, we should say, had no opportunity to do so,
for deliberation was not asked for. The Council
received canons at the dictation of Innocent the
Third, and, amongst the canons, the doctrine of
Transubstantiation was for the first time synodically

STEPHEN LANGTON 143

authorised, and confession was made generally
obligatory.

To show their sympathy for the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the canons of York elected his brother,
Simon Langton, to the Archbishopric of York
(Simon de Langetuna vir quidem parum habens
gratiae popularis), but both Pope and King refused
to approve the election; the latter because he
feared that with his brother, Stephen, in ecclesi-
astical power in the south and himself (Simon)
in the northern regions, their combined influence
might be greater than his. (Timebat autem rex,
ne si Stephanus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus in
australibus, et f rater ejus Symon Eboracensis
archiepiscopus factus in septemtrionalibus domin-
erentur, quasi maximi praelati in Anglia, omnia
ad vota eorum disponerentur, et alter alterius
auxilio fulciretur.) The York canons were forced
to receive, instead of Simon Langton, a most un-
worthy and rapacious prelate — Walter de Gray,
Bishop of Worcester.

ANARCHY

The last sixteen months of John's reign were a
mere anarchy, but we are not to lay all the blame
on John. The barons, elated with their success,
showed very little moderation. They trusted the
King no more than he trusted them. Many of

144 STEPHEN LANGTON

them, no doubt, wished to thoroughly humiliate
the King. Stephen Langton's departure for Rome
left them without the prudent, sincere, and honest
English counsel that was needed for the successful
vindication of the national cause, and gave the
chief place amongst them to men who had personal
wrongs to avenge and personal objects to attain.
The insurgents lost in the Archibishop's absence,
not only their bond of union, but also a wholesome
restraint ; and his absence must be reckoned among
the causes of the royalist reaction soon to take
place, for whilst Robert Fitz- Walter had all the
valour of a soldier, he had none of the genius of a
general, and he was without the sagacity of a
statesman. (During the truce between Philip the
Second and John in 1213, when the latter was in
Normandy, a tournament took place in the presence
of both monarchs, at which Fitz- Walter, concealed
in his armour, at the first course overthrew both
horse and man, upon which the English sovereign
swore : " By God's tooth ! he deserves to be a
king, who hath such a soldier in his train." Upon
this some friends of the baron made him known to
John, who restored to him the whole of his forfeited
estates, and permitted him to repair his destroyed
fortresses.)

Of the lay barons there is not one who rose either
before or after the signing of the Charter to the
first rank among English statesmen, while Stephen

STEPHEN LANGTON 145

Langton, whose high intellectual gifts were coupled
with an earnest patriotism and practical sagacity,
had entered English politics too recently, as one
writer says, to know how deep the evils of the
existing system went.

One answer to this is that whilst in exile in
Pontigny, and also before his appointment to the
Primacy of all England, Stephen would probably
be well acquainted with the political condition of
his native country and the social needs of the people
from information supplied as regularly as possible
by his brother Simon.

DISINTEGRATION OF THE NATIONAL PARTY

However, the strength of the Archbishop's in-
fluence is proved by the disintegration of the
national party which occurred as soon as he had
departed. Some endeavoured by all lawful means
to enforce the Charter, others made overtures to
the Kings of Scotland and France. In the Civil
War which followed the revocation of the Great
Charter of John, victory inclined very constantly
to his side; his mercenaries were an overmatch for
the feudal tenantry of the barons. Their devasta-
tions caused the barons more pain than the an-
athemas and excommunications of Pope Innocent.
Many individuals made their peace with the King.
Place after place surrendered, and at last London

alone remained to the maintainers of the Charter.
L

146 STEPHEN LANGTON

k in

Thus driven to extremity, the barons took in
their turn the desperate step of calling in foreign
aid. They declared John to have forfeited the
Crown, and offered it to Louis of France to fill his
place.

More than once in history a similar step has been
dictated by the mere blindness of political passion,
or by the party spirit which elevates the importance
of particular measures above the safety of the State
itself.

But we should judge harshly of the barons in
this case if we were to forget that the feeling of
nationality, now so engrained into our whole char-
acter, was then in its very infancy, a vague
impalpable emotion, the secret power of which
probably no statesman, except perhaps Stephen
Langton, had yet divined, and which had yet
long to wait before it was consecrated by common
suffering, by united achievements, and by the
establishment of distinctive political institutions.

And if the deposition of John were judged to
be a necessity, Louis was, perhaps, the only pos-
sible successor. He was the nephew of John by
marriage; he was, through his father, suzerain of
the continental provinces of England, actual lord
of Normandy (he had also defeated John at La
Roche au Moine), and was master of troops who
had conquered at Bouvines and in the Albigensian
Crusades.

STEPHEN LANGTON 147

His accession might seem to promise a speedy
termination of the war, and a settlement of those
questions of divided allegiance and consequent
confiscation which, since the loss of Normandy,
had borne so heavily on some of the great houses
of England.

Louis, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE

If it involved annexation to France, it may be
remembered that this country (says the Rev. W. W.
Shirley, in Letters of Henry the Third) was familiar-
ised by long habit to the government of an alien
king, and that of their sovereigns since the Norman
Conquest, Stephen and John alone had constantly
resided in the island. The barons were not wholly
un-English if they argued that the frequent absence
of the sovereign was an essential condition of
freedom and good government.

What disasters their unhappy decision might
have entailed upon England had it been allowed to
work itself out to its natural consequences, it is
fortunately in vain to speculate.

Louis accepted the offer. After having received
twenty-four young men, sons of the noblest families,
as hostages, he sent over a fleet with a numerous band
of French knights, and a letter that he would lead
hither a powerful army at Easter, 1216. At this
time Cardinal Gualo chanced to be travelling through

148 STEPHEN LANGTON

miic

France to England, and foreseeing that if Louis
were successful, the Pope would lose his interest in
the kingdom, he first endeavoured to suspend
the expedition by solicitations, and then forbade it,
upon the penalty of excommunication, as belonging
to the Holy See. But the Dauphin had already
determined upon the attempt, and, after making
a haughty reply to the Legate, sailed for England
with a fleet of 680 ships, and, after some losses,
landed at Sandwich, May 30, 1216, when the
barons who favoured the Great Charter joined his
standard. He recaptured Rochester Castle, and
thence, marching to London on June 2, was met
in procession by the barons and citizens, who
conducted him to St. Paul's, where he prayed,
received the homage of his new subjects, and took
a solemn oath to govern them by good laws, pro-
tect them against their enemies, and reinstate them
in their former rights and possessions. The baronial
enterprise was now attended with rapid success,
whilst the cause of King John declined in propor-
tion. The counties round London, the King of
Scots, and the men of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire,
declared in favour of Louis; even several of the
royal barons hastened to offer him their homage
and fealty; and the foreign soldiers of John either
revolted to the Dauphin or returned to their
homes.

Owing to the fact of Louis's excommunication,

STEPHEN LANGTON 149

but few of the clergy dared to support him, whilst
many of the officials of the school of Henry the
Second faithfully held to John. But in the mean-
time Louis obtained considerable successes, and,
whilst continuing the struggle, John suddenly died,
October 19, 1216. According to Professor Tout,
the prudent measures which we shall see were
taken by the guardians of the little King, Henry
the Third, made many of the supporters of Louis to
melt away, because those who hated John the most
had no ill-will to the monarchy; and the innocent
boy on the throne was in nowise responsible for the
crimes of his father; besides, there was the feeling
that for England to be ruled by a prince who would
one day be King of France was a dangerous thing.

Louis soon began to lose ground, and when in
1217 Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, defeated him in
a pitched battle in the streets of Lincoln, and a
fleet containing reinforcements from France for him
was utterly destroyed by Hubert de Burgh off
Sandwich, he found it useless to continue in England
any longer, and therefore in September 1217 he
executed the Treaty of Lambeth with William
Marshall, by which he agreed to leave England.

THE DEATH OF KING JOHN

The death of John, auspicious as it was, could
not wholly remove the dark cloud, says the Rev.
W. W. Shirley, which overhung the land. The

150 STEPHEN LANGTON

from

young king, guiltless of the wrongs, and free from
the animosities of his father, had one great advan-
tage : he could forgive without suspicion. But his
advisers were those of his father ; some of them the
ministers of his vices; some of them foreign ad-
venturers ; the best of them who had looked coldly
on the Charter, and when victory was followed by
peace, one inevitable condition was attached. The
supporters of the Charter, who had followed Louis
of France, were indeed admitted to pardon; they
could not hope for favour.

For the first four years of Henry the Third, almost
every office of importance, every sheriff of a county,
every governor of a royal castle, so far as the names
are known, was taken from the short list of those
who had stood by the side of John at Runnymede,
from the few proscribed by the text of the Charter,
or from the soldiers who had since been in arms
against the baronial league. Amongst the most
notable of these are Falkes de Breaute, Engelard de
Cigoigny, and Philip Mare — all sentenced to exile
by the Charter; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin;
Peter, Bishop of Winchester; Jocelyn, Bishop of
Bath; Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, the two
Fitz-Herberts, Alan and Thomas Basset, Hubert
de Burgh, John Marshall, and Philip D'Albiney, all
of whom stood quasi ex parte regis at Runny-
mede. Amongst those who deserted John only at
the last moment were the Earls of Chester, Albe-

STEPHEN LANGTON 151

marie, R. Vipont, G. Lucy, Brian de Lisle, Henry
Braybroc, and William Brewer.

Every one of these held office in the first year of
Henry the Third. It was impossible for any party
to be completely exiled from political power than
at that moment were the authors of the Great
Charter. The presage of bad government which
such a condition of affairs might have suggested
was not wholly justified by the event.

Political virtue has never, in this country, been
confined to a single party, and the party of the
Great Charter was no exception. Yet, after all
allowances, it was, perhaps, hardly to be hoped that
among the courtiers and advisers of King John
two such men should have been found as Marshall,
Earl of Pembroke, and Hubert de Burgh.

There is, perhaps, no period of equal length, from
the Norman Conquest to the present day, over
which the reader of English history, it is said, passes
with more impatient haste than over the twenty
years which elapsed between the accession and the
marriage of Henry the Third, none which appears
so barren of great events, or so silent of the character
of its actors. They were years, not of exciting
interest, but of critical importance, nor is it easy
to say how much the destiny of this country has
been affected by the current of political influences
to which it was subjected during the first few years
after the granting of Magna Charta.

152 STEPHEN LANGTON

ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD

John was succeeded by his son Henry the Third
(nine years old), who was hastily crowned October 28,
1216, at Gloucester, immediately after his father's
death, when Langton's charter was accepted as the
first official act of the reign by the advice of the
Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England and one of
the guardians of the young King.

" We have been the enemies of this child's
father," said the Marshal, a good and true gentle-
man, to the few lords who were present, " and he
merited our ill-will, but the child himself is inno-
cent, and his youth demands our friendship and
protection."

So strong was Langton's party, evidently, that
during his absence from England, Gualo, Cardinal
of St. Martin's, the papal legate, acted prudently by
reversing the policy of Innocent the Third, and in
conjunction with Pembroke issued a confirmation
of the Charter in the name of Henry the Third.

The aged regent, Pembroke, was held in profound
respect. His policy was the simple but difficult
one of conciliation. He accepted the Charter, but
shorn of the celebrated clause which protects the
subject from arbitrary taxation. He proclaimed a
large amnesty for the past, and inspired the just
confidence that it would be loyally observed. Above

STEPHEN LANGTON 153

all, he managed with singular skill the great difficulty
of his position, the claim of papal suzerainty. The
surrender of King John was interpreted by Pope
Honorius to imply that the Pope was the sole
guardian of the royal minor, a claim of vague
import and most perilous precedent, but which it
was yet undesirable to question, while the restora-
tion and maintenance of peace depended almost
wholly upon the forbearance and the support of
Rome. Yet, without embroiling himself with
either Pope or papal legate, and holding firmly his
own authority — in truth it must be said that during
the first two years of Henry the Third's minority
affairs both in Church and State were largely ruled
from Rome. The letters of Pope Honorius, which
occur every month, are addressed not only to the
legate, but to bishops, abbots, barons, including
William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, the King's
guardian. The powers of the legate Gualo seem to
have been almost absolute. He imprisons thirteen
clerks at Westminster who had used disrespectful
language to him. As usual with papal agents, no
small pecuniary profits were made out of these
transactions. When the legate returned to Rome
in 1218, " his saddle bags," says Matthew Paris,
" were well stuffed with incalculable gains." Gualo
seems, amongst other things, to have attempted
to undermine the power of the Regent, by giving him
the Earl of Chester, one of the most factious and un-

154 STEPHEN LANGTON

principled nobles of the day, as a colleague. Pope
Honorius, however, was sufficiently well advised
to discourage the scheme.

RISE OF PANDULPH

Pope Innocent died in July 1216, before he had
tried the case of the Archbishop of Canterbury;
and the death of John and the recognition of
Henry the Third, already recorded, set Langton
free to return to England, but he did not actually
return before May 1218.

On his return from exile he found such engrossing
occupation in the business of his see that, it is
said, he took little part in politics for several years.
His self-effacement strengthened the position of the
papal legate, Pandulph, Bishop-elect of Norwich,
who was no stranger to England. As sub-deacon
of the Roman Church he received, as we have seen,
John's submission in 1213, and stood side by side
with him in nearly all his later troubles. On the
recall of Gualo, he had come back to England in
the higher capacity of legate, December 3, 1218. He
had been the cause of Langton's suspension, and
there was probably no love lost between him and
the Archbishop.

It was in order to avoid troublesome questions
of jurisdiction that Pandulph, at the Pope's sug-
gestion, continued to postpone his consecration as

STEPHEN LANGTON 155

bishop, since that act would have subordinated
him to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The sup-
plementary rite of the Coronation of the young
King on Whitsunday, 1220 A.D., in Westminster
Abbey, with all the ceremonies, some of which had
been necessarily omitted at Gloucester, Pandulph
discreetly permitted, says Professor Tout, the
Archbishop Langton to take.

But not all the self-restraint of the legate could
commend him to Langton, whose obstinate insistence
upon his metropolitan authority forced Pandulph to
procure " bulls " from Rome specifically releasing
him from the jurisdiction of the Primate.

The young King, Henry the Third, at the coro-
nation just referred to, then only fourteen years
of age, swore to observe the laws of Magna Charta,
notwithstanding the Pope's condemnation of the
Charter ; but it is sad to be obliged to say that he
frequently broke them during his long reign. Pem-
broke's death, at the beginning of 1219 A.D., after
a year spent in giving order to the realm, brought
no change in the system he had adopted.

The control of affairs passed into the hands of
the legate, Pandulph, of Stephen Langton, says
Prof. J. R. Green, and of the Justiciar, Hubert de
Burgh.

156 STEPHEN LANGTON

ARCHBISHOP LANGTON'S RETURN FROM ROME

De Burgh's conception of good government lay
in a wise personal administration, in the preserv-
ation of order and law, but his desire for national
independence was hampered by the constant inter-
ference of Rome.

The close of the struggle for the Charter saw the
feudal party break out in their old lawlessness and
defiance of the Crown. For a time the anarchy
of King Stephen's days seemed to revive. But the
Justiciar was resolute to crush it, and he was aided
by the strenuous efforts of Archbishop Langton.
The complexity of the political situation is some-
times perfectly bewildering. The nobles and the
towns formed two great parties, natural enemies
to each other, both of which England was at this
time too weak to govern, and between which she
could not choose without throwing the other into
the arms of France.

If, in the face of these difficulties, the country
might not unnaturally acquiesce for a time in the
new encroachments of the legate, Pandulph, on
the other hand, was not a man to miss the oppor-
tunity of power. A keen perception of opportunity
seeming indeed to have been among the most re-
markable qualities of a man more fitted to acquire
power than to retain it, and, who hastened by un-

STEPHEN LANGTON 157

governable arrogance, says the Rev. W. W. Shirley,
a fall which was perhaps inevitable. The first year
of his legation was passed in almost unbroken
success. But this unbroken success did not last
long, for the fall of Pandulph was occasioned by
the joint action or tacit understanding of Archbishop
Langton and Hubert de Burgh.

For the vacancy caused by Geoffrey Neville's
resignation of the office of seneschal, Pandulph and
Des Roches recommended a native noble, whilst
De Burgh, who had himself been seneschal in the
last reign, supported the petition of the cities, who
dreaded the dictatorship of a feudal neighbour and
implored the appointment of an Englishman.

The Great Council seems to have approved of
De Burgh's policy.

A private " bull " addressed to Pandulph himself
arrived at the very time the Great Council was
sitting, in which it was stated that no obedience was
due to the metropolitan (Archbishop Langton) from
the legate so long as he continued to be only Bishop-
elect of Norwich.

Thus, at the very moment that De Burgh was
for a time in open difference with Pandulph, Stephen
Langton had to suffer a keen mortification from
him. Then the latter set out for Rome. By what
support the man who had so fearlessly resisted the
encroachments of the papal power in England
could hope to carry his cause at Rome we would

158 STEPHEN LANGTON

like to know, but that he did gain his point is evident
from the fact that he wrested a promise from Pope
Honorius the Third that so long as he was Arch-
bishop of Canterbury no papal legate should be
sent to England, therefore the direct interference
of the papacy in the government of the realm came
to an end.

Pandulph was not called upon to resign, but his
resignation naturally followed, and he departed
with every expression of respect upon an impossible
mission to Poitou. Thus Rome destroyed with
her own hands that singular fabric of legatine
government which she had so recently and boldly
set up.

*
THE CHARTER, LANGTON'S CHIEF OBJECT

But even these services of the Primate were small
compared with his services to English freedom.
Throughout his life the Charter was the first object
of his care.

The omission of the articles which restricted the
royal power over taxation in the Charter which
was published at Henry the Third's accession, in
1216, was doubtless due to the Archbishop's absence
and disgrace at Rome. The suppression of disorder
seems to have revived the old spirit of resistance
among the royal ministers, for when Stephen
Langton, as leader and spokesman of the Barons,

STEPHEN LANGTON 159

demanded a fresh confirmation of the Charter in
Parliament, at London, 1223 A.D., William Brewer,
one of the King's councillors, protested that it had
been extorted by force and was without legal
validity.

(Willelmus de Briwere, qui unus erat ex consiliariis
regis, pro rege respondens, dixit, " Libertates quas
petitis, quia violent er extort ae fuerunt, non debent
de jure observari.")

" If you loved the King, William/' the Primate
burst out in anger, " you would not throw a stum-
bling block in the way of the peace of the realm."
(Si regem in veritate diligeres, pacem regni non
impedires.)

The young King was cowed by the Archbishop's
wrath, and promised observance of the Charter.

It was, no doubt, with the view of checking the
efforts of Peter de Roches and his partisans to get
complete mastery of the young King that Archbishop
Langton and Hubert de Burgh obtained, in the
year 1223, a declaration from the Pope that Henry
was now old enough to direct the affairs of the
kingdom himself, with the aid and advice of his
Council.

The Archbishop and his suffragan (diocesan)
bishops were to warn all who had the custody of
fortresses, honours and manors belonging to the
King to surrender them on pain of excommunica-
tion.

160 STEPHEN LANGTON

Although the fall of Pandulph left to De Burgh
the first place in the State, it left an unscrupulous
rival at his side. De Roches, who thwarted De
Burgh and became the leader of aggrieved nobles,
with the Earls of Chester and Albemarle, Falkes
de Breaute and other foreigners at their head,
attempted to seize London and overturn the Govern-
ment. Thwarted in this, they returned to Leicester,
where they celebrated Christmas with defiant pomp.
The die was cast. A trial of strength between the
two parties was inevitable. Resolved on the part
of De Burgh that the royal court should assemble
for Christmas at Northampton, near enough to
Leicester for intimidation, and, if necessary, for
action. It was a move, however, which could only
have been taken in the consciousness of strength.
It was an appeal to the loyalty of the country and
most nobly it was answered. Such a royal Christmas,
the chronicler assures us, had never been kept since
the days of Cceur de Lion. The Church, as usual,
played her foremost part, and on the morrow after
Christmas, the bishops, with their courageous and
determined Primate, Stephen Langton, at their
head, solemnly excommunicated the leaders of the
Leicester secession. This display of power was
conclusive. Overmatched and disheartened, the
rebels hastened to make their peace and surrender
the royal castles. Archbishop Langton and the
baronage demanded, two years later, 1225 A.D., a

STEPHEN LANGTON 161

fresh promulgation of the Charter as the price of a
subsidy, and Henry the Third's assent established
in principle, so fruitful of constitutional results,
that redress of wrongs precedes a grant to the
Crown.

BISHOP HUGH OF LINCOLN

Archbishop Stephen Langton was at the head of
the Commission appointed by the Pope in 1223 A.D.
to examine the miracles alleged to have been per-
formed at the grave of Hugh, the late Bishop of
Lincoln, who died 1200 A.D.

No one could influence Henry the Third so
powerfully as the fearless Hugh of Lincoln, who
when the former wanted to prefer a courtier to a
• prebendal stall at Lincoln Cathedral, says Rev.
C. A. Lane, the Bishop replied, " O king, the
benefices of the Church are for ecclesiastics, not
for Lthose who serve the palace." Hugh's frank
and dauntless manner and faith in the King's
sense of right made him Henry's firmest friend,
and when Richard the First succeeded his father
on the English throne, no man could stand so
fearlessly and conscientiously before him as Hugh.

When King Richard the First sent to England a
demand for more money for the support of his war
with France from the barons and bishops and
clergy, it was this same Hugh, already referred to

M

i62 STEPHEN LANGTON

at the beginning of this book, who said, on behalf
of the clergy, " Our homage to the King does not
include military service for foreign wars." Richard's
reply was to order the Bishop's goods to be con-
fiscated, but none of the King's officers ventured
to carry out his mandate for fear of episcopal
anathemas. To save the King's officers from
Richard's wrath, Bishop Hugh visited the impetuous
monarch in Normandy, who was at that time
attending a celebration of the Holy Communion.

The Bishop boldly advanced to the King and
claimed the kiss of peace, which was then a customary
part of the Eucharistic Service. The King looked
another way; the service was suspended, and all
the nobles watched the singular mental struggle.
" Kiss me, my lord," said Hugh again, " for I have
come from far to see thee." ' You have not
deserved it," replied Richard. " Nay, but I have,"
and he laid hold of the royal robe. The King now
turned towards the prelate, but there were no signs
of flinching on the part of Hugh when their eyes
met, so the lion-hearted was vanquished and the
kiss was granted. Afterwards Richard said,
" If all bishops were like Hugh, no prince would
venture to withstand them." His remarkable
courage has gained for him the pseudonym of Regum
Malleus, " the hammer of kings."

The report of Archbishop Langton respecting
alleged miracles at Hugh's grave was so favourable

STEPHEN LANGTON 163

that Pope Honorius the Third at once issued the
bull of canonization of St. Hugh of Lincoln.

ROME'S DEMAND FOR PECUNIARY HELP

Once more the Archbishop of Canterbury had to
deal with a papal legate who had come to England
to disturb the peace of the Church of which he was
the ecclesiastical chief. A chaplain of the Pope,
named Otho, was sent in the Pope's name in 1225
A.D., on a special mission to lay before the English
Church the poverty of Rome, and to request that
" all should unite as natural children to relieve the
needs of their Mother (the Romish Church) and
their Father (the Pope). The way in which Otho
proposed that this should be done was, that in
every collegiate church the revenues of one pre-
bend, and in every cathedral church that of two
prebends, together with a fixed sum from every
monastery, should be reserved for Rome.

Langton insisted that the matter should be
referred to an English Council and to the King.
The Council was summoned to meet in London in
the following spring. Meanwhile the Archbishop
induced the Pope to recall Otho, and when the
Synod met at St. Paul's, May 4, 1226, he laid before
the assembly the papal claims, and pointed out
that the same demands had been made on the
Church of France, but had been neglected by the
French clergy.

164 STEPHEN LANGTON

1 +T^

It was resolved by the King, the nobles, and the
prelates that the Archbishop should make the
following wise and cautious reply to the papal
request : " What the Lord Pope asks us to do is a
matter which affects the whole Christian world.
We are placed, as it were, on the very confines of
the world, and consequently desire to see how other
kingdoms will act in regard to these proposed ex-
actions. When we shall have the example of what
others do before our eyes, the Lord Pope will not
find us more backward in obedience."

With this answer the Roman Curia had to rest
content, and Stephen Langton was never again
troubled by a papal legate or nuncio.

Leaving the affairs of his diocese in the hands
of his brother Simon, whom he had appointed
Archdeacon of Canterbury, the Cardinal-archbishop
of Canterbury retired to his country residence at
Slindon in Sussex, where he died July 9, 1228 A.D.,
after reigning twenty-two years as archbishop;
and his remains were deposited in a chapel called
St. Michael's, or the Warrior's, in Canterbury
Cathedral, which stands on the south side against
the western transept.

HEAVY BLOW TO ENGLISH FREEDOM
Notwithstanding the opposition made by Stephen
Langton to the exactions of Rome, Pope Honorius

STEPHEN LANGTON 165

greatly extolled him when dead, saying, "The
custodian of the earthly paradise of Canterbury,
Stephen of happy memory, a man pre-eminently
endowed with the gifts of knowledge and supernal
grace, has been called, as we hope and believe, to
the joy and rest of paradise above/'

The death of the Archbishop was a very heavy
blow to English freedom. In persuading Rome to
withdraw her legate, the Primate had averted a
conflict between the national desire for self-govern-
ment and the papal claims for overlordship. The
mere consideration of the fact of legatine authority,
and the vivid alarm with which the attempt to
renew it, after the death of Langton, was regarded,
certainly leads to the conclusion that it was singu-
larly oppressive and unpopular ; and we may fairly
infer that the experience of its evils was one of the
chief causes which operated during the next few
years to determine the political attitude of the
English Church.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, during
the infancy of our Constitution, the influence of
the Church was almost more important than that
of the lay nobility. It was by the Church, led by
Archbishop Langton, full as much as by them, that
the Great Council was won; it was by her again,
and chiefly through her titular head, that the
country was delivered from the yoke of legatine
authority; it was by her also that De Burgh was

166 STEPHEN LANGTON

maintained in power ; it was from her, finally, that
Simon de Montfort derived his most able and con-
sistent support.

The cause of this is extremely simple. Not only
was the Church more advanced in political intelli-
gence, it had also the most at stake in the govern-
ment of Henry's reign, viz. the exclusion of aliens
from power.

But Langton's death gave the signal for a more
serious struggle ; for it was in the oppression of the
Church of England by the Pope's during the reign
of Henry the Third that the little rift first opened
which was destined to widen into a gulf that parted
the one from the other at the Reformation. It
was only by the promise of a heavy subsidy that
Henry the Third, in 1229 A.D., could buy the
papal confirmation of Langton's successor, but the
baronage at once rejected the King's demand for an
" aid " to Rome.

WHY WAS ARCHBISHOP LANGTON NOT MADE A
PAPAL LEGATE OF SOME SORT?

It may be profitable to consider this question
here. Was the position offered him by either
Innocent the Third or Honorius the Third, popes
of Rome, during his tenure of the archiepiscopal
See of Canterbury? Did Innocent think Stephen

STEPHEN LANGTON 167

Langton too learned, to judicious, and too mighty
a person to entrust with a power almost, for the
time being, equal to his own ? Was he afraid of a
possible supersession by Cardinal Langton in effect,
if not in name, if he made the latter a permanent
papal legate?

In those days it was not, we must remember, an
impossible thing, as it has seemed now for hundreds
of years, for an Englishman to become Pope of
Rome, for in the same year that Henry the Second
was crowned by Theobald (1154 A.D.), Nicholas
Breakspear, an Englishman, had been made pope,
under the title of Adrian the Fourth ; although this
is the only instance of an Englishman obtaining
that position.

But can we conceive of Innocent the Third, after
the account already given of him, offering Arch-
bishop Langton the position of papal legate in
England, a position which had been held by some
of his predecessors ? I think so, but, it would seem
to me, probably, only on condition that the office
must be accepted and exercised literally, submis-
sively and thoroughly dependently on the offerers'
will. Innocent's love of and his idea of inherent
power as Vicar of Christ on earth would force him
to demand from such a character as Stephen (whose
college friend he had been, whose independence of
character he would have noticed, and probably
was well aware of his intense patriotism for his

i68 STEPHEN LANGTON

native country) a definite, clear, literal promise
that he would be content (like the officials of Frederic
the Great of Prussia, 1740-1748 A.D.) merely to
register papal decrees, and fulminate papal bulls
against any and whomsoever he (Innocent) might
issue them.

By making Henry, Bishop of Winchester, to be
a legatus ordinarius or ordinary legate, in 1137 A.D.,
the Pope placed the Archbishop of Canterbury in
subjection to one of his own suffragans, cleverly
calculating that the Archbishops of Canterbury in
the future would be not only willing but anxious
to avoid the repetition of so grave an outrage by
assuming the chains of slavery themselves.

Assuming the offer was made by Innocent on
the humiliating condition imagined, and refused
by Archbishop Langton, it would still be greatly
to the latter's credit, for in the Middle Ages the
position of papal legate was a powerful one, as
will be gathered from the following : William of
Corbeil, Archbishop of Canterbury, claimed and
obtained the office in 1127 A.D., and it was held
by the archbishops, with occasional interruptions,
till Cranmer disavowed it in Convocation in 1534
A.D. The archbishops accepted the oifice rather
than have a legate appointed over their heads, and
it added to their dignity and authority in the eyes
of the Church; the popes were glad to give them
the office because it turned into supporters of the

STEPHEN LANGTON 169

papal authority in the Church of England those
who would else have been its bitterest and most
powerful opponents; and gave to much of the
constitutional authority which they exercised as
archbishops the appearance of being exercised as the
delegated authority of the " Apostolic See." And
this system also helped very much to familiarise
men's minds with the doctrine of papal supremacy,
and caused hopeless confusion between the metro-
politan and legatine powers of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. These ex officio legates whom the
popes found it convenient to appoint in other
churches besides England, were called legati nati,
i. e. born, or ex officio legates.

But the popes continued from time to time to
send special legates, legati a later e, i. e. " from beside
himself," on special occasions, and their authority
for the time superseded that of the legatus natus.
Thus Pandulph was sent to receive King John's
surrender and oath of fealty. Otho and Ottoboni
were sent, in Henry the Third's reign, to regulate
and plunder the Church which John's surrender had
placed at the mercy of the Court of Rome.

THE ARCHBISHOP'S TREATMENT OF POPES'
COMMANDS

After Archbishop Langton's treatment of the
commands of Innocent the Third, we can hardly

i;o STEPHEN LANGTON

imagine that the latter's successor, Honorius the
Third, would be anxious to entrust the former with
legatine or ambassadorial power in a country so far
away, when locomotion and transmission of business
were not expedited by steam engines, steamships,
telephones, telegraphs and marconigrams, but even
if he made the offer to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
it would be refused, in my humble judgment, for
the same reason that he refused, if approached, the
offer of Pope Innocent. And the reason for the
assumed twice offered and twice refused position
would probably be that he had learned from his
reading of British-Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman
history that the Church of his native land had again
and again asserted its independence, and that,
therefore, the Pope of Rome as such had no really
effective, but only a kind of conventional juris-
diction within the realm of England; or how could
Langton have managed to persuade Pope Honorius
the Third to grant " that the Archbishop of York
should carry his cross only in his own province,
that the Pope should not give away any English
benefice to a foreigner in succession to a foreigner;
and that no legate should ever again be sent to
England during his (Langton's) life; the result
being a complete victory for his policy as regards
the administration of the English Church? "

In the light of Honorius's promise — and let us
bear in mind that he was the immediate successor

STEPHEN LANGTON 171

of the would-be world-dominating Pope Innocent —
not to make appointments of foreigners to English
benefices and of a legate to our country, how could
the English Church at this time, we ask, be con-
sidered as wholly subservient, as asserted by some,
to the Church of Rome?

We would here seem to have some support for
the reason given respecting the refusal of the as-
sumed offer of a papal ambassadorship by Stephen
Langton. But it might be replied that Pope
Honorius was prudentially waiving his rights only
for a time, arid that the Archbishop of Canterbury
was only anxious for his own personal honour and
ascendancy in stipulating that the promise should
only be operative during his lifetime. Archbishop
Langton was too much of a statesman to lose the
opportunity of getting the public promise of the
Pope of Rome in essential matters, even if only for
his own lifetime. By this action the former kept
before the eyes of the English people what had
been held, perhaps, rather dimly before his time —
namely, the independence of their Church and of
their nation. And most probably Langton believed
that, whoever might be his successor, he would
adhere firmly to Magna Charta, which asserted the
privileges of both the national Church a|id of the
different orders of English people.

172 STEPHEN LANGTON

THE FORGED DECRETALS

Again, some support for the reason given why
Archbishop Langton refused the assumed twice
offered papal legateship may probably also be
obtained from the matter of the Forged Decretals.
What are these?

Somebody, who took the name of Isidore, a
famous Spanish Bishop (560-636 A.D.) who had
been dead more than 200 years, made a collection
of Church law and of popes' letters ; and he mixed
up with the true letters a quantity which he had
himself forged, but which pretended to have been
written by bishops of Rome from the very time
of the Apostles. The forger (Isidore Mercator)
published them in Spain about 845 A.D., and he
naturally fathered them upon the great Isidore of
Seville. And in these letters it was made to appear
that the Pope had been appointed by our Lord
Himself to be head of the whole Church, and to
govern it as he liked ; and that the popes had always
used this power from the beginning. Now, nobody
in those times had any notion that they were false,
and so they were believed by every one, and the
Pope got all that they claimed for him. And for
some generations after the publication of the pseudo-
Isidorian decretals, the See of Rome gradually
pressed forward the claim to an ultimate appellate

STEPHEN LANGTON 173

jurisdiction, and consequently, to the headship of
the Church.

The Roman theologians had put this claim, not
on the ground that such an organisation had gradu-
ally grown up and was practically advantageous,
and thereupon ought to be accepted by all Christian
people, but they had declared it to be of divine
right. Christ, they asserted, had given to Peter
and his successors a supremacy over the Church;
and the popes of Rome were the successors of Peter ;
and so they claimed, as of divine right, that the
Pope was the centre of Christian unity, and the
head of the Church on earth, and the representative
and vicegerent of Jesus Christ her Lord. This
theory Innocent the Third did his best, as we have
already seen, to make it a reality.

But did Archbishop Langton believe in this
theory? It is true he had connived — nay, more,
that he had asked for the putting into practice of
this theory against King John with regard to the
latter's excommunication, and in his acquiescence
with the " Interdict " which affected the whole
kingdom, but evidently, from what we have just
seen in his attitude towards both Innocent the
Third and Honorius the Third, he had not a wholly
implicit and unquestioned belief in the theory, or
else he would not have flatly disobeyed Innocent's
injunction to excommunicate the barons (when the
latter declared Magna Charta null and void), and

174 STEPHEN LANGTON

Langton would never have dreamed of suggesting
or demanding the terms, recently referred to, which
he obtained from Pope Honorius.

LANGTON'S RESPECT FOR ROME

Archbishop Langton, no doubt, had respect for
Rome as the centre of wealth and learning.

The Middle Ages, in spite of many diversities,
have a certain stamp of unity, and, above all, of
simplicity. The papal court was a common meeting
place at the end of the twelfth century for the best
intellects from all lands. There was one common
language for all formal interchange of thought.
There was one great system which separated all
Europe into classes, and made all the members of
a given class akin. A nation, on the other hand,
as such, had little influence on its neighbour, and
mingled seldom in that neighbour's quarrels. Kings
went their own way, for the most part untram-
melled by fear of interference. Each country had
only to reckon with a sovereign, a few bishops and
nobles, and a large uneducated mass of people ; not
as to-day, with the most far-reaching representation,
with a king or president, with a Parliament of two
Houses of Representatives. And all this simplicity
of the times is admirably reflected in the documents
that have come down to us.

The fact that Rome was so important a place

STEPHEN LANGTON 175

did not prevent Langton from believing in the
independence of the English Church and of the
English nation. But he did not, in the least, act
as if he thought the Church of Rome was a totally
different body from his own Church; rather, he
looked upon that Church as running on parallel
lines with his own as regards essential doctrines,
and considered both these Churches as national
Churches, and forming part of the Catholic (not
Roman Catholic) Church of Christendom. If Arch-
bishop Langton had been so obsessed with the idea
of the English Church being a subordinate part of
the Roman Catholic Church there would be great
reason for believing that he would have worked
hand and glove with Pope Innocent, who would have
made him a papal ambassador with full powers
(legatus a later e), and this office would have been
confirmed to him by Pope Honorius the Third.

Such a scholar as Langton was likely to be an
omnivorous reader, as well as a voluminous writer,
and therefore would know that England owed its
Christian religion not in a specially large way to
the Italian band of missionaries but in a considerable
degree to missionaries from Ireland and Scotland,
who in their turn were indebted to a great extent
to Gaul or France, and the latter, of course, not only
to missionaries from the West, but also from the
East, the birthplace and burialplace of Him whom
both Roman Catholic and English Catholic tried

176 STEPHEN LANGTON

and do try to glorify and make known to all
men.

If it be said that Archbishop Stephen Langton's
episcopate was uneventful, this much must be said,
that for one who suffered so much and worked so
well in other ways he might well be pardoned whose
pastoral work was not comparable with his work
as a statesman, patriot, social reformer and scholar.
And yet his work as an archbishop was not without
some interesting features when we take into account
the difference between the circumstances and con-
ditions of life in his time and our own, for we find
that, amongst other things.

STEPHEN LANGTON WAS A CHURCH REVIVALIST

He had a fondness for the magnificent in ecclesi-
astical ritual. To restore religious fervour and
enthusiasm in the country, when reading was not
the common heritage of all, he caused the memory
of several famous English saints to be revived by
translating their remains to much grander shrines
or sacred places; thus the remains of Wulfstan,
the Saxon Bishop of Worcester, 1061 A.D. (the
dignitary who was so popular that even William
the Conqueror thought it not politic to remove from
his See in order to make way for a Norman ecclesi-
astic), and Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, 1162 A.D., were translated, amidst imposing

STEPHEN LANGTON 177

ceremonies; to witness the latter noblemen and
prelates came from foreign countries. Cardinal
Archbishop Langton entertained the company after
the function in the new palace he had built which,
to the eyes of contemporary chroniclers, could
hardly have been surpassed by the glories of King
Solomon's buildings, and the banquet was such as
recalled the f eastings of King Ahasuerus. Langton 's
lavish expenditure on the ceremonies in connection
with the translation of Thomas Beckett is said to
have involved the See of Canterbury in debts of
which it was not cleared until the fourth primate in
succession from himself. In this the Archbishop
seems to have gone beyond the scriptural injunction
that a bishop must be given to hospitality.

The cause of the financial encumbrance of the
See of Canterbury was looked upon as its great
event in the thirteenth century, and as one of its
most glorious pageants, for " the chroniclers " agree
in stating that the concourse of people from all
nations was of a character such as England never
before witnessed. For fifty years the martyr's
corpse (Archbishop Beckett) had rested in the crypt ;
but on the night of July 6, 1220 A.D., it was privately
removed under the superintendence of Prior Walter
by the monks of Christ Church, in the presence of
Archbishop Langton and the Bishop of Salisbury,
and carried to the west end of the nave. The
remains were placed in a strong coffer studded with

N

178 STEPHEN LANGTON

iron clamps and nails, where they were watched
till the dawn of July 7. On that morning, in the
presence of the boy-king, Henry the Third, of too
tender years to be himself a bearer, the coffer was
raised on the shoulders of Pandulph, the papal
legate, Archbishop Langton, Hubert de Burgh, the
grand Justiciary and the Archbishop of Rheims,
and borne by them into the quire, and up the steps
of Trinity Chapel. Liberal provision was made for
the vast crowd, which consisted

" Of bishops and abbots, priors and parsons,
Of earls, and of barons, and of many knights

thereto,

Of sergeants, and of squires, and of his husband-
men enow,

And of simple men eke of the land, so thick thither
drew."

Stephen Langton was well prepared for this
universal concourse of all conditions of men, and
was not taken aback by its numbers, for he had
himself caused proclamations to be circulated of
the great day whereon his martyred predecessor
was to be honoured, two years before the event,
and this not only throughout England, but through-
out all the Christian states of Europe. Provision
was made for the multitudes not merely in Canter-
bury itself, where at each gate tuns of wine were
freely distributed to all comers, but the whole way

hed

STEPHEN LANGTON 179

along the road from London to Canterbury hay and
provender for man and beast were given to all who
asked. In the following year, from a sermon on
the translation of Thomas Beckett, the fiftieth year
of the death of the martyr, it may be inferred that
a good deal of uproarious revelry took place at the
great festival.

DOMINICAN AND FRANCISCAN ORDERS OF MONKS

Again Langton showed himself a Church revivalist
in his desire for the revival of spirituality amongst
his people by introducing the Dominican and
Franciscan Orders of monks into England, and allow-
ing them to preach not only in his own particular
diocese, but in his Province of Canterbury, which
meant not only over the larger part of England, but
where the populations, compared with the northern
province of York, was much larger. But what
real need was there for introducing these foreign
orders at all into England when the country was
wrell supplied at the time with religious houses in
addition to many parish (secular as opposed to
regular) priests? Whilst very much can be said
in favour of the monastic communities, there was
one very serious drawback to their beneficial in-
fluence on the nation. The support given to these
great auxiliary institutions which were added to the
system of the ancient Church of England tended

i8o STEPHEN LANGTON

to weaken the hands of the bishops and clergy
had the cure of the souls of the people, for the
Normans introduced the custom into England of
endowing the monasteries which they founded or
supported, not only with land and money, but also
with the rectories of which they had become
patrons, with the result that the vicars or representa-
tives of the monasteries in the benefices were very
poorly remunerated for their work, and lost prestige
in the eyes of their parishioners because they were
unable to confer temporal benefits upon them, as
their predecessors, the old rectors, had been able to.
This was one of the causes that tended to deteriorate
the influence and usefulness of the secular — that is,
the parochial clergy, and, therefore, tended to the
moral and spiritual deterioration of the people, for
parish chaplains could not really fill the place of
the rector ; no locum tenens could adequately fulfil
the duties of an absentee.

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS

As the population increased the clergy were not
able to supply its spiritual needs. In the towns
of England in the thirteenth century, the condition
of the people bore some resemblance to that which
forms the great and painful problem of our own
days. Foul, crowded dwellings, in undrained and
unscavenged quarters of the towns, inducing leprosy

STEPHEN LANGTON 181

and occasional visitations of plague, extreme poverty,
ignorance, vice and misery, were among the char-
acteristics of the Middle Ages as nearly all these are
of our own. It was to meet this condition of things
that the orders of friars were founded in the thir-
teenth century. The first Dominican friars landed
1221 A.D., and the first Franciscans in 1224; the
former preachers to the educated and capable of
dealing with the infidelity of the time; the latter,
impressed with the miseries of the poor, were mis-
sionaries of charity to the most distressed and de-
graded outcasts of our great towns. They were
mission preachers and, at this time, the purest and
poorest of evangelists. " Nothing," it is said,
in the histories of Wesley and Whitfield, " can be
compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere
welcomed them, or with the immediate visible
result of their labours/' But it is sad to relate that
within a century these orders were destined to
become lazy and covetous, quacks and pretenders,
salt that had lost its savour, one of the saddest
spectacles of degeneration in history, for, by the
middle of the fourteenth century, we find Chaucer,
in his prologue to the Canterbury Tales, elaborating
a beautiful description of the evangelical virtues
of a poor parson of a town (a secular priest).

" A good man there was of religion.
A Parson poor in worldly goods but

182 STEPHEN LANGTON

Rich in holy thought and work.
He preached the law of Christ,
And His apostles, and better still
Followed it himself ; and never
Did he fail to visit all
Who were sick and in trouble ! "

Whilst he satirises the jolly fox-hunting monk and
the hypocritical cant and money-getting tricks of
the friar —

" A monk there was who cared
Little of what was said about him, and
Spared no cost to keep the finest greyhounds ;
And whose sleeves were edged with lace.

And there was a friar —

A riotous merry fellow enough,

Glib of tongue, yet solemn in his office,

And his penances were light,

When people made it worth his while."

Archbishop Langton's desire for the moral and
spiritual uplifting of his people prompted him to
allow the Dominican and Franciscan orders of
monks, when in their prime for religious purity
and zeal, to come where they were so much needed,
for the religious influence of the clergy had sunk to
a low ebb; non-residence and ignorance and the
disuse of preaching, on the part of many priests, and

STEPHEN LANGTON 183

the decline of the older monastic orders created a
demand for these self-denying missionaries.

Walter de Map, chaplain to King John, and also
a judge and ambassador, in an oft-quoted passage,
writes : " The whole body of the clergy, from
pope to hedge-priest, is busy in the chase for gain.
What escapes the bishop is snapped up by the
archdeacon, and what escapes the archdeacon is
nosed and hunted down by the dean; while a
host of hungry officials prowl around these greater
marauders."

In Langton's attitude towards these friars we
see that the pastoral, spiritual side of his office
was not wholly laid aside. The Archbishop was
evidently one who realised that there were diversi-
ties of gifts, and that such men as these missioners
were more able than himself and his clergy to bring
about a higher moral and spiritual tone among both
the educated and uneducated classes in his Province
of Canterbury. Here the primate, I think, carried
his aptitude for statesmanship into the pastoral
needs of the large ecclesiastical province over which
he presided, and, in this matter, I consider that
Langton exhibited one of the marks of greatness of
character in allowing others whom he thought could
do the work, for which he was responsible, better
than himself, and without showing any kind of
jealousy at their success, and his own apparent lack
of success in the spiritual side of his great position.

184 STEPHEN LANGTON

Archbishop Langton showed himself alive to his
work as a pastor when the religious training and
education of the people had to be done so much
by the concrete, through the eye, by market crosses,
architecture, etc., for he was a

CHURCH RESTORER AND CHURCH BUILDER

Great vigour was infused into the Church during
the latter days of his primacy, which had its greatest
effect in the rebuilding of old and the construction
of new churches. Westminster Abbey nave and
transepts present to us the finest specimen of Early
English architecture. The Abbey Church, which
Edward the Confessor built, had fallen into decay,
and a great part was rebuilt by Henry the Third at
the instigation of Langton.

From the register of Hugh of Wells, 1209-1235
A.D. (consecrated by Archbishop Langton during his
enforced exile), it appears that three hundred vicar-
ages (benefices) were ordained in his long episcopate.
This meant a large amount of church building,
probably a new church for the vicarages or parishes
just referred to. And what the Bishop of Lincoln
was doing in his vast diocese, other bishops were
also doing, proportionately, all up and down the
country. Therefore we may presume that this
excellent Church work, in the Province of Canter-
bury, received the blessing of its archbishop, and

STEPHEN LANGTON 185

that, in the latter's own diocese, Stephen Langton
encouraged the endowment and building of vicarages
and benefices, and thus brought to the people a
resident clergyman or, at least, the more frequent
administration of the sacraments of the Church.

The Historical Manuscripts' Commission, vol. iv.
p. 66, speaks of Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
notifying that Sir William Briwerr had in his
presence granted the church of Coleton to the
deanery of Exeter (1225).

CHURCH REFORMER

Again, Archbishop Langton was a reformer of
Convocation, or the Church's Parliament. In the
Anglo-Saxon period Church Councils were either
assemblies of the whole Church (Anglicana), such
as were held at Clovesho and Hertford (A.D. 673),
or provincial gatherings of the clergy of York and
Canterbury. In his organisation of the Church,
Archbishop Theodore, the metropolitan of Canter-
bury, 668 A.D., provided for the annual meeting of
a synod at Clovesho, somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of London.

Diocesan synods were only instituted after the
Norman Conquest, and, before that date, member-
ship of the provincial synods was confined to the
episcopate or bishops. Abbots and archdeacons
were added after the Conquest. The growth of

i86 STEPHEN LANGTON

the Provincial Convocations is chiefly marked by
the institution and development of the principle of
representation. There are few traces of it before
the pontificate of Stephen Langton.

In 1225 A-D- Langton summoned not only the
bishops, abbots, priors, deans and archdeacons, but
also proctors or representatives from the collegiate
and monastic clergy ; and by this means broadened
its constitution.

SCHOLAR AND DIVINE

Archbishop Stephen Langton's reputation as a
scholar and a divine in his day was great. He was
a person of considerable learning, and is the author
of various theological tracts, some of which have
been printed, and lists of all them that are known
are given by Cave and Tanner. It has been shown
in a note to Watson's History of English Poetry
(edition 1840, ii. p. 28) that there is no reason to
suppose Langton to have been the author of a
drama in the French language, which had been
assigned to him by Mde. le Rue on no better grounds
than the manuscript having been found bound up
with one of the Cardinal's sermons.

One chief enduring result of Langton's industrious
scholarship is seen in the division of the Bible into
chapters and, expressed in the quaint words of an
old chronicler, " He coted the Bible at Parys and
marked the chapitres." This statement has been

STEPHEN LANGTON 187

confirmed by recent researches of Denifle, which
prove already that the division of the sacred text
into chapters owes its origin to Stephen Langton.

The importance of this work may be sufficiently
gauged by its widespread adoption, for the division
into chapters has not only passed from the Vulgate
to all modern vernacular versions of the Bible, but
has been applied with obvious advantage to the
Greek New Testament and to the Septuagint. It
is, indeed, one of the few cases in which Latin
scholarship has affected the Eastern Churches.
The Jews have adopted the division but not the
Langtonian division.

The works written by or attributed to Stephen
Langton are voluminous, but they consist chiefly
of commentaries on the Scriptures which are dis-
tinguishable in general by their scholastic subtleties,
and, were it not for his political celebrity, he would
not hold a very prominent place among the Anglo-
Norman writers. A rather early manuscript in the
Bodleian Library (Oxford) sums up the literary
labours of Stephen by stating that " while at Paris
he divided the Bible into chapters and verses
(quotavit), he wrote expositions on the book of
Kings, composed a life of King Richard, and left
many other volumes the produce of his industry."
Langton, as already stated, is said to have been
the author of the division of the books of the Old
and New Testament into chapters and verses, but

188 STEPHEN LANGTON

others have disputed his claims, and attributed
this mode of division to a French scholar named
Hugh de St. Cher. The authority of the Oxford
manuscript just quoted may, however, be considered
as giving some weight to Stephen's claims.

Among his other theological writings, the most
remarkable are the Sermones de Tempore et de
Saudis, which are preserved in manuscript. The
Archbishop also enjoyed some reputation as a Latin
poet. Perhaps the most singular of all Langton's
writings is a brief sermon preserved in a manuscript
in the British Museum (MS. Arundel, No. 292), in
which he takes a stanza of a French popular song,
and gives a theological comment or moralisation
on each phrase. It is written in Latin and is
entitled " The Sermon of Master S. de Langton,
Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Holy
Mary."

Dr. Hook says of Archbishop Stephen Langton,
" A man more inflexibly upright than he or more
profoundly erudite, both as a philosopher of the
schools and as a biblical scholar, could not be found.
In the controversies of a university not free from
turbulence, and in the discussions of ecclesiastical
chapters where intrigue was often busy, Langton
had found opportunity to prove that, by his varied
talents and knowledge of human nature, he was
qualified to shine equally in the court and in the
cloister, in the conduct of public affairs not less

STEPHEN LANGTON 189

than in the meditations of the contemplative life,
among politicians as among scholars/'

SYNOD OF OSENEY

Look at Archbishop Langton as the president of
a very important synod, and we shall see him as a
strict disciplinarian of the clergy, monks, nuns, and
laity. In 1222 A.D. he presided over the Provincial
Council held at Oseney, Oxford, when the following
decrees, composed by himself, were passed (the
decrees are printed in the collections of Spellman
and Wilkins) —

1. Excommunicates generally all who encroach
upon the rights of the Church, disturb the public
peace, etc.

2. Directs that bishops shall retain about them
wise and charitable almoners, and attend to the
petitions of the poor; that they shall also at times
themselves hear and make confessions; that they
shall reside at their cathedrals, etc.

3. Forbids bishops, archdeacons, and deans to
take anything for collations or institutions to
benefices.

4. Concerning a dispute among patrons.

5. Concerning the Divine Office (i. e. Holy Com-
munion) and of Baptism. (Praecipue baptismatis
et altaris devotissime.)

190 STEPHEN LANGTON

6. Orders the celebration of the nocturnal and
diurnal office, and of all the sacraments, especially
those of baptism and of the altar, with such devotion
as God inspires.

7. Forbids priests to say Mass more than once in
the same day, except at Christmas and Easter, and
when there was a corpse to be buried.

8. 9. Clergymen should not be merchants or
tradesmen; should not practise secular jurisdic-
tions especially those in which there is annexed the
judgment of blood.

10. Orders curates to preach often, and to attend
to the sick.

11. Directs that the ornaments and vessels of the
church be properly kept, and that in every church
there shall be a silver chalice and a clean white
linen cloth for the altar; also that old corporals be
burnt, etc.

12. Forbids any one to resign his benefice, and to
retain the vicarage, to prevent suspicion of unlawful
bargain.

13. Forbids to divide benefices in order to provide
for several persons.

14. On what persons vicariates (benefices) ought
to be conferred. Any one unwilling to be ordained
to the priesthood to be deprived of a vicariate.

15. Orders churches, not worth more than five
marks a year, to be given to none but such as will
reside and minister in them.

onrl

STEPHEN LANGTON 191

16. Assigns to a perpetual vicar a stipend not
less than five marks, except in Wales, " where
vicars are content with less by reason of the poverty
of the churches." Orders that the diocesan (bishop)
shall decide whether the parson or vicar shall bear
the charges of the church.

From these rules of the Council of Oxford 1222
A.D., we can illustrate how great was the difference
in wealth and social position between the higher
and the lower clergy.

Whatever may have been the gulf between the
wealth of bishops and the poverty of the parish
clergy in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, it
is as nothing to what we find in the Middle Ages —
five marks a year the minimum stipend for the
parish clergy.

17. Orders that in large parishes there shall be
two or three priests.

18. Directs that the bishop shall make the person
presented to a living, take an oath that he has
neither given nor promised anything to the patron.

19. Provides that in each archdeaconry confessors
shall be appointed for the rural deans and others
of the clergy who may be unwilling to confess to
the bishop.

20. Takes from the rural deans the cognisance of
matrimonial causes.

21. Forbids, under anathema, to harbour thieves,
etc.

192 STEPHEN LANGTON

22, 23. Relate to archidiaconal visitations. For-
bid those dignitaries to burden the clergy whom
they visit, with many horses, to invite strangers to
the procurations provided for them, and to extort
procurations without reasonable cause.

24. Forbids to let out to farm archdeaconries,
deaneries, etc.

25. Orders the archdeacons to take care in their
visitations that the canon of the Mass be correct,
that the priest can rightly pronounce the words of
the canon and of baptism, that laymen be taught
how to baptise rightly in case of necessity, and that
the host, chrism, and holy oil be kept under lock
and key, etc.

26. Forbids bishops, archdeacons, and their
officers to pass sentence without first giving the
canonical monitions.

27. Forbids to exact any fee for burials and the
administration of the holy sacraments.

28. Respecting the life and honourable reputation
of the clergy.

29. Concerning the alienation of ecclesiastical
possessions.

30. Orders ecclesiastics to wear decent habits
with close copes, to observe the tonsure, to keep
their hair cut short, and to abstain from immoderate
eating and drinking.

31. Forbids clergymen in Holy Orders publicly
to keep wives.

STEPHEN LANGTON 193

" It was by no means a matter of course that the
presentee or occupant of a benefice was in Holy
Orders. Great laxity prevailed. Many presentees
were refused institution until they had attended at
the ' schools ' of Northampton, or Oxford, or other
places for a certain length of time."

32, 33. Concerning the vesting or clothing of
nuns and abbots.

34. Forbids the clergy to spend their ecclesi-
astical revenues in building houses on lay fees for
their sons, nephews or concubines (wives).

35. Nothing to be extorted from those living in
religion.

36. Forbids the nuns to wear veils of silk, to use
pins of silver and gold, and to wear girdles worked
and embroidered, and long trains.

37. 38. Respecting the concession of many bene-
fices and of matrimony.

39, 40. Concerning the hindrances and impedi-
ments, etc., of Jews.

41. Forbids to give a person already provided
with a benefice having cure of souls, any revenue
out of another church.

42, 43. Orders monks to live in common, and for-
bids them to receive any one into their community
under eighteen years of age.

44. Orders monks to give away to the poor what
remains of their repasts.

45. Forbids monks to make wills.

194 STEPHEN LANGTON

46. No religious person should hold any property.

47. Forbids monks and canons regular to eat and
drink save at the appointed hours, permits them
to quench their thirst in the refectory, but not to
indulge.

48. 49, 50. Religious persons should not be
gluttons. Other directions as to their social
behaviour.

Very remarkable were these enactments of the
Provincial Council of Oseney. Archbishop Stephen
Langton, who was of an ascetic disposition (and the
canons just given would seem to imply a general
prevalence of clerical matrimony), dealt in the
harshest way with the wives of the married clergy,
styling them mere concubines, and insisting on their
being put away immediately. All " concubines "
(wives), unless they get them gone, are to be ex-
pelled from the Church, refused the sacraments, and
even, added the austere primate in his injunction,
denied Christian burial. The clergy who persisted
in living with them were to be suspended, and were
to be subjected to severe penance before absolution
was granted. But a recognition of the marriage
of the clergy took place in 1225, when a canon was
published allowing the wives of the clergy to be
admitted to the sacraments of the Church if they
expressed penitence.

Langton was not of an unstable disposition, and

-ty.

STEPHEN LANGTON 195

when we compare him with his eminent predecessor,
Archbishop Thomas Beckett, he was much more
consistent than he in the maintenance of a public
cause, but where he himself was concerned he was
submissive to a fault. There is no record of any
eccentric asceticism at one time and of relapses
into luxurious living at other times, on the part of
Langton, during his residence at Pontigny. He
was ready to leave his books that he might enter
into the duties of public life. We never read of his
injuring his cause by his impetuosity or through the
ebullitions of a violent temper, although he was not
devoid, as already seen in his canons of Oseney, of
an exhibition of cruel asceticism.

But this attitude (harsh and unreasonable as it
seems to us) towards the wives of the clergy was
not new, for synod after synod had continued to
legislate against the married clergy before Lang-
ton's enactments, on which Dr. Cutts says, " that
the clergy might not leave such partners (wives)
anything in their wills, that if the poor wives didn't
leave their partners (husbands) they should be
excluded from the Church and the Sacraments ; and
if that did not suffice, they (wives) should be stricken
with the sword of excommunication; and, lastly,
the secular arm should be invoked against them."

This synod of Oseney enjoins the clergy " not to
be dumb dogs, but with salutary bark to drive
away the disease of spiritual wolves from the flock."

196 STEPHEN LANGTON

It was this Provincial Council which has been ren-
dered famous by one of the earliest known instances
of execution for heresy, which is not much to the
president's credit. An impostor who pretended to
be Jesus Christ, and who showed scars on his hands,
feet and sides, which he said were inflicted on him
by the Jews, was condemned by the Council, and
put to death on a cross ; and this Council also con-
demned to be burnt a deacon who had apostatised
to Judaism to marry a Jewess; the latter case the
only capital condemnation for heresy which we read
of till the passing of the Act de heretico comburendo
in 1400 A.D., that is, the burning of heretics, by
which persons condemned in the Church courts for
false teaching were handed over to the sheriff of the
county to be burnt alive.

Here we have

ARCHBISHOP LANGTON AS A BANISHER OF
STRANGE DOCTRINE

Strange that Langton, who was, as already
stated, such a biblical scholar in his own day, and
who must have read the Sermon on the Mount
and St. Paul's Triumph Song of Love or Charity
(i Cor. xiii.) could be a party to the cruelty
just mentioned. If we judge this side of his
character by the Christian conscience of our own
day, the Archbishop's attitude towards heresy

STEPHEN LANGTON 197

would be a cruel and intolerable one; but if we
judge him, it ought to be taken into account that
he had spent a large amount of the responsible
portion of his life on the Continent, where there
was not very much compunction on the part of his
contemporaries to inflict condign punishment on
heretics (vide Innocent the Third), and then we may
not find it difficult to imagine that he sincerely
believed it necessary to the glory of God and the
extension of His Kingdom that blasphemy and
heresy ought to be so punished in the flesh that the
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

As the years rolled on, and with their wider and
supposed more tolerant ideas, we find in A.D. 1402
(Henry the Fourth) that Sawtree — a Lollard priest,
was burnt for heresy. In the sixteenth century,
as in the Middle Ages, it was still thought to be the
business of the State to uphold religious truth and
to put down heretical teaching by the severest
means. To tolerate error was regarded as a sin,
and it was looked upon as something like rebellion
for a subject to reject the religion of his sovereign.
Protestant and Catholic (Roman) Kings alike had
sent those who disagreed with their doctrines to
the scaffold. Many were the victims of Henry the
Eighth's ecclesiastical policy. Edward the Sixth
had burnt the extreme Protestants called Ana-
baptists, and Calvin himself had condemned to
death the Unitarian Servetus.

198 STEPHEN LANGTON

From 1648 to 1654 A.D. the followers of the strange
enthusiast, George Fox, began now to be abundant.
For some reason or other these fanatics were worse
treated than the others. The gaols are said to have
been full of Quakers under the Commonwealth.

Cromwell's Constitution (1654-8 A.D.) promised
liberty of worship to " all such as do profess faith
in God by Jesus Christ " ; yet Anglicanism and
Catholicism (Roman) labelled Prelacy and Popery —
and regarded as idolatrous or politically dangerous
— were excepted by name from this promise. Even
the English Church Prayer-Book was prohibited
from being used either in public or in private. In
August 1645 A.D. any one using the Book of Com-
mon Prayer was to be fined five pounds for the first
offence, ten pounds for the second, for the third a
year's imprisonment. Any minister not using the
Government's Directory of Worship was to be fined
forty shillings for each offence. This was done in
the name of toleration. Slow, but dreadful cruelty
was inflicted by a so-called toleration government
on hundreds of clergy and their families. Even a
writer who does his best to put Cromwell as a tolerant
man says that, in June 1654, a Catholic (Roman)
priest was executed in London for no crime except
being a priest. And this took place four hundred
years after Archbishop Stephen Langton's time.

History, the record of human actions, tells us that
Roman Catholic, English Catholic and Protestant,

STEPHEN LANGTON 199

Nonconformist and Calvinist, have all been guilty
of cruelty one towards another, but, unfortunately
for the detractors of professedly Christian repre-
sentatives, the practising of cruelty, on account of
a difference of opinion, does not belong exclusively to
Christians, for what could have been more horrible
than the terrible cruelties inflicted by Infidels,
so-called Theists, and Socialists, in the shape of
butcheries and wholesale drownings of crowds of
Christian clergy and laity, and also of Non-Christian
men and women during the French Revolution,
1789-95 A.D., in the name of liberty, equality and
fraternity ?

Immediately after the execution of the unfor-
tunate queen, Marie Antoinette, 1793 A.D., the
enthusiastic and noble-hearted Madame Roland
was led to the scaffold. On passing before the
statue of Liberty, which was erected at the Place
de la Revolution, she apostrophized it in the
memorable words : " O Liberty ! what crimes are
committed in thy name ! "

And these awful deeds were done 550 years after
the Archbishop's time.

Stephen Langton's cruel attitude at the Synod
of Oseney is not praised or approved by the Christian
code of ethics, but he must be judged fairly, and
this cannot be done if this particular conduct of
his be looked at and judged by what we see through
twentieth-century spectacles.

aoo STEPHEN LANGTON

SOCIAL REFORMER

Archbishop Langton's attitude as a Social Re-
former, that is, his regard for the good of the nation
as a whole, should be recognised.

Immediately preceding Magna Charta, Langton
saw through the attempt made by the King and
Pope to separate the cause of the clergy from that
of the barons, by offering to the clergy, first as from
the King himself, and then from the King ratified
by the Pope, a charter of ecclesiastical liberties
which might easily have been accepted by one less
able or more selfish, but our hero would not have
anything to do here with party or sectional advan-
tage. In the few details of Magna Charta, already
given, we see the position of freemen, merchants,
barons, clergy, women, and the villeins very much
improved. If social reform is to be of any real good
it must be backed up by efficient rulers, and,
amongst the latter, we find Langton strenuously
aiding the efforts of Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar of
Henry the Third, in crushing the anarchy prevalent
1219-21.

In the preamble to the canons enacted at Oseney,
1222, a sad picture of the times is presented to us.
Excommunication is declared to be ipso facto
incurred by all who violate monasteries, seize the
goods of clergymen or their tenants, or in any ways

STEPHEN LANGTON 201

molest their persons, and especially of those who
keep robbers on their lands, in their castles or houses;
or are sharers with them, or are lords over them.
One of the worst of these robber-chiefs was the
ruffian Falkes de Breaute*. An event, in the summer
of the year 1224, shows that some powerful influence
was at work in Rome adverse to Henry the Third's
interests, for amongst the hostile barons was this
Falkes de Breaute, a man of infamous character,
but one who, nevertheless, somehow or other suc-
ceeded in securing (one writer says by purchase)
the powerful protection of Pope Honorius the Third.
He had long been famous, or infamous, in England
for his crimes, and for setting all laws at defiance
almost as he pleased.

This year his evil courses reached a climax. He
was summoned before the King's justices at Dun-
stable to answer to more than thirty writs for
having robbed various people, and he was con-
demned to pay heavy fines for the King. De
Breaute, upon hearing this, sent soldiers from
Bedford Castle to seize the persons of the judges.
One was taken and imprisoned. Refusing to set
the ill-fated judge at liberty, Archbishop Stephen
Langton and the bishops solemnly excommunicated
Falkes, and the King laid siege to the castle. Pope
Honorius writes of this brigand as " that noble
man " who in time of need had risked his life
and property for your father, King John, and for

202 STEPHEN LANGTON

yourself, "and warns the King not to punish the
aforesaid nobleman, nor allow him to be punished
in any way."

To Cardinal Langton, Pope Honorius wrote on
this subject in a manner even more peremptory :
' We have not yet been able to force our mind to
credit what has been suggested to us about you by
many, though they have striven to enforce the truth
of what they say by many evidences. We thought,
indeed, of that eminent knowledge of Divine Scrip-
ture which you possess . . . and of that abundance
of love which has been shown to you by the Apos-
tolic See in so many ways ; and turning these things
over in our mind, we could not bring ourselves to
think anything evil or unworthy of you. We warn
your Fraternity, and strictly order you, by our
Apostolic letters, that you cause the King at once
to abandon the siege of the said nobleman, and that
you, without delay or difficulty, relax the sentence
you have laid upon him and his followers." Henry
the Third's reply was to the effect that the Pope
might understand that the very order of the king-
dom demanded peremptory satisfaction from the
man whom the Pope had gone out of his way to
defend. The correspondence was dropped. On
Breaute's submission, the wife of that noble pleaded
for the King's protection. Before Archbishop
Stephen Langton she sued for a divorce on the ground
that she had been married by force and had never

STEPHEN LANGTON 203

given her consent. She had been the widow of
Baldwin, Earl of Albemarle, and when Falkes de
Breaute had earned the gratitude of King John, in
1213, by his cruelties perpetrated in Wales, John,
as his reward, bestowed the Countess Margaret,
with all her possessions, upon him. The Archbishop
considered her case, and finally her lands and pos-
sessions were restored to her by Henry the Third,
and she was placed under the protection of the Earl
of Albemarle. Pope Honorius wrote two letters
on the subject, the first directed to Archbishop
Langton and others. In the second, addressed to
the Archbishop alone, he speaks in very strong
language, for he imagines that the wife of Falkes
was detained from him apparently against her will.
He warns Langton, the possessor of such a know-
ledge of Divine Scripture, for the sake of his own
reputation to remember the account which will be
demanded of him at the last day, and he specially
appeals to him to try in every way to get the King
to do what he has written to tell him in this matter.
The Archbishop was not to be moved from his love
of law and order which made for the general social
welfare of the nation.

In a very special way must social reform have
been brought about by Langton's introduction of
the Dominican and Franciscan missioners into
England in the matter of improved conditions
for the mass of the people with regard to better

304 STEPHEN LANGTON

housing, temperance, workmen's wages, education
and sanitation.

STATESMAN-ARCHBISHOP

Neither Pope Innocent the Third nor King John
really knew the character of Stephen Langton.
They had seen in him a patient, suffering exile.
Neither potentate expected the Archbishop to take
a resolute and independent stand against his author-
ity ; and both of them were, no doubt, surprised to
see in him a powerful and skilful organiser, not only
of the barons, who were discontented with John,
and whom he taught to combine and form them-
selves into a kind of " House of Lords/' but a
skilful organiser in formulating a national, and
not a sectional, policy which preserved alike the
material, temporal, and religious privileges of the
community; because he saw that neither the King
nor the Pope could be relied on for giving the free-
dom which he considered necessary for the lasting
welfare of the nation and its Church (vide Magna
Charta and the Council of Oseney).

ARCHBISHOP LANGTON AS A PATRIOT

Stephen was a lover of his native country and of
its freedom; he was jealous for its honour and
for its great institution, the Church. Hence his

STEPHEN LANGTON 205

opposition to the very unpatriotic King John, who
submitted to be the vassal of the Pope, and thus
allowed the papal influence to reach its height in
England ; and his opposition also to the Popes who
tried to make him feel that he was only their servant,
and had to do their bidding in both Church and State.

But was Stephen consistently patriotic? Did
he not allow a foreign clerical potentate to appoint
him to the metropolitan see of the English Church ?
True. But there was this in Langton's favour, that
he was an Englishman of the highest character for
goodness and ability, and he might have thought
that it was better for his native country's good that
he should not then contest the right of the Pope —
almost universally recognised in Europe at the time
in the appointment of ecclesiastical persons, and
especially so when he saw the unworthy Bishop of
Norwich recommended by John to the Pope for the
position he himself so ably filled afterwards.

It is nowhere, as far as I can find, stated that
Langton sought the Archbishopric of Canterbury
for himself.

It would appear that Langton allowed the Pope
to issue the interdict which involved his innocent
countrymen in suffering, but early on, probably at
Stephen's instigation, his brother Simon pressed
King John to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury
to return to England so that the blighting Interdict
might be taken off.

206 STEPHEN LANGTON

Then, later on, it is true that Langton asked for
and obtained from the Pope the excommunication,
and ultimately the deposition, of his country's
King; but it might be replied that John by this
time was really only King de jure and not de facto
as well ; and that the Archbishop's intense patriot-
ism induced him to invoke the arm of one who could
back up his spiritual condemnation with material
weapons, without his believing in the Pope having
a position as Universal Monarch.

Stephen might have thought that, once in Eng-
land, he could rally the English generally, and strike
fear into the heart of the tyrant John and induce
him to act honestly, justly and equitably. In this
he would be acting from prudential motives.

When in England, Langton soon showed himself
on the side of those who, whilst they hated John,
did not wish to have a foreigner to rule over them ;
and soon demanded laws, ultimately obtained by
Magna Charta, which made, as we have seen, for the
freedom of the people from the King and freedom
of the Church from both King and Pope.

In spite of the Pope's reconciliation with John,
and the former's command to Langton to excom-
municate the barons, on account of Magna Charta,
the Archbishop refused, probably on the ground
that he believed the Pope of Rome had no authority,
legal, moral or religious, to interfere in the affairs
of the English nation and the English Church ; and

for

STEPHEN LANGTON 207

especially so when the opinions of all classes of the
English people had been so recently materialised
in the Great Charter. Langton's patriotism has
already been shown with regard to his successful
attitude towards William Brewer, Henry the Third's
councillor, respecting the second reading of the
Great Charter.

Again, the Archbishop was successful towards
Honorius the Third respecting the visits of his legates
to England, to his demand for material help from
English benefices, and also with regard to the punish-
ment of the ruffian Breaute. In all these matters
Stephen evidently wished to give Rome the im-
pression in a polite manner that it must be " hands
off " as regards the management of that Church
which he felt should be a free and independent
Church, and of which he was accepted nationally
as its chief.

To anticipate one result of our hero's attitude.
When Cardinal William Allen, who was an English-
man, wrote a letter in 1588 exhorting the English
to accept Philip the Second of Spain as the executor
of Pope Pius the Fifth's sentence of deposition
against Queen Elizabeth, it was hoped that, on
the landing of Spaniards from the Armada, the
English Roman Catholics would gladly join with
them in throwing off the yoke of the heretic queen-
but, despite the efforts of Allen, whatever resident
Roman Catholics there were joined with the English

208 STEPHEN LANGTON

Catholics (many of whom probably were called or
called themselves Protestants, as opposing papal
supremacy and non-Scriptural doctrine), and affect-
ively opposed the unjustifiable claims of the Bishop
of Rome, by successfully resisting the intended
invaders, for it was no longer a war of religions, but
a struggle between two nations. This action was a
confirmation of Langton's attitude, 350 years before,
when he stood up boldly against probably the most
powerful Pope of all for the independence of both
his Church and his country.

By the way, it seems very strange to me to read
the statement, so often reiterated and repeated by
Roman Catholics, and also by some educated Non-
conformists, that practically up to 1588 England
was thoroughly Roman Catholic. If it were
so, how comes it then, although England had
officially (not really) restored the Roman Catholic
spiritual supremacy in 1554, that, within the short
period of thirty-five years the Romish Church was
unable to influence its supposed adherents resident
in England to its side ? Does it not seem to show,
to some extent, that the majority of the people of
England felt that in resisting Rome they were not
resisting a Church superior to their own or an
ecclesiastic superior to their own metropolitan and
primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that
they had no intentions of ministering to the idea of
the universal despotism of the Pope ?

STEPHEN LANGTON 209

Magna Charta styles our Church not the Church
of Rome, but the Church of England — Ecclesia
Anglicana — and the Act of Parliament, Edward the
Third, 1350 A.D., refers to it as La Seinte Eglise
d'Engeterre, that is, the Holy Church of England.

But the patriotic stand made by Langton did not
prevent him from giving deferential and courteous
consideration to the wishes of the two Popes he had
to deal with in matters spiritual. Our hero, after
his arrival in England, July 16, 1213, allowed the
metropolitans of Rome no more effective jurisdiction
in the English Church than would be allowed now-
adays by the metropolitans of South Africa and
Australia to the metropolitan of Canterbury in
their respective churches.

Too much credit cannot be assigned to Archbishop
Langton for the bold stand we have shown he made
for civic and ecclesiastical freedom, from the oppres-
sion of the King on the one hand and the autocracy
of the Pope on the other. And we may say that it
was not in Geoffrey Fitz- Peter that English freedom
was to find its champion and the baronage their
leader. From the moment of his landing in England
Stephen Langton had taken up the constitutional
position of the Primate in upholding the old customs
and rights of the realm against the personal des-
potism of the kings. And he alone of all the con-
stitutionalists attained to influence and consideration
under Henry the Third. Such is the common lot

210 STEPHEN LANGTON

of revolutionaries unblessed with genius, that when
they survive the need which called them into being,
they are exceptionally fortunate if the historian,
after recounting their mistakes, will concede to
them the merit of a patriotic intention.

CONCLUSION

Archbishop Stephen Langton's greatness of char-
acter stands out conspicuously when we see what
took place immediately after his death. The oppor-
tunities of his position enabled the Pope to prey
heavily on the revenues of England. When the
Church suffered the great loss of Langton (a man
who throughout his career, as already seen, had
been of most signal service to his Church and nation)
the monks of Canterbury, being allowed to proceed
to a free election, abused their privilege by electing
an obscure monk of ill repute named Walter de
Hemisham. The suffragan bishops and the King
refused to accept this election in which they had not
been consulted. In the end Richard Grant, Chan-
cellor of Lincoln, was appointed on condition of the
King promising that the clergy would give a tenth
of their revenues to the Pope. Already the inde-
pendence of the English Church, which Langton had
so nobly defended, was going.

" Even among his own countrymen," says the
(Roman) Catholic Cyclopaedia, " too few have an

STEPHEN LANGTON 211

adequate knowledge of his merits and of his great
services to his country and to the Catholic Church,
although his labours were concerned with the two
things specially dear to Englishmen, the Bible and
the British Constitution. Little though they may
think it, every one who reads the Bible or enjoys the
benefit of civic freedom owes a debt of gratitude to
this Catholic Cardinal." (The writer of this book
would suggest that the debt of gratitude owing to
this statesman-ecclesiastic is rather to Langton's
position as Archbishop of Canterbury — the Catholic
(Roman) Cardinal's part being almost obliterated
by the higher office of Primate of all England.)

If men may be measured by the magnitude of the
work they accomplish, it may be safely said that
Langton was the greatest Englishman who ever sat
in the chair of St. Augustine. For Anselm was not
an Englishman, and his triumphs were won in fields
of thought and politics of less interest to Englishmen.

Some churchmen, again, have been great as
writers and thinkers, others as statesmen solicitous
for the welfare of the whole people, and others as
zealous pastors of the flock, but it was Stephen
Langton's lot to win distinction in all three capacities
as scholar, statesman and as Archbishop, and the
author of this book would add in other capacities
also, such as social reformer, patriot, Church reformer

and hero,
p 2

INDEX

ADRIAN THE FOURTH, Pope,

167

Albigenses, 17, 18, 146
Albini, William de, 122, 140
Alexander of Scotland, 113
Aliens, 103
Anarchy, 142, 200
Angevin, 6, 8
Anglicana Ecclesia, 81, 128
Anselm, n, 12, 20, 46, 211
Army of God, 68, 129
Arthur, Prince, 7, 9, to

Baronage, 3, 8, 10, 56, 63, 71,
73. 79,93. 103, in, 113, 124,
135. 141

Barons, the 25, in, 115
Beckett, Archbishop, 3, 5, 6,

27. 176

Benedictines, 4
Bible, 186, 202, 211
Bonaparte, 137
Bouvines, 68, 146
Brantfield, Elias de, 21
Breakspear, Nich., pope, 167
Breaute, Falkes de, 150, 160,

201, 203

Brewer, William, 151, 159, 207
Bull, papal, 137, 168
Burgh, Hubert de, 14, 151,

155, 157, 159, 178, 200

Calvin, 197

Canons of Oseney, 191
Canterbury, 7, 10, n, 13,22, 22,
25. 3L 33. 139. 164, 177, 183
Cardinal Allen, 207

Cardinal's status, 24, 25
Charter, Ecclesiastical, 69, 72
Chaucer, 182
Church, National, n, 58, 62,

67, 72, 81, 127, 130, 138
Church Property, 37, 39, 67,

210

Church restorer, 184
Church revivalist, 176
Cistercians, 38
Civil War, 145
Clergy, 37, 190, 195
Coke, Sir Edward, 76
Communion, virtual, 35
Conciliatory Archbishop, 44
Cong& d'elire, 10
Convocation, 168, 185
Corbeil, Archbishop, 168
Council, Great, 163
Covenant, The, 124
Cranmer, Archbishop, 168
Cromwell, 198
Crusaders, 46, 67, 73, 109, 113

Dauphin, The, 10, 53
Decretals, Forged, 172
Deposition of King John, 46
Dominicans, 179, 203
Dunstable, 66, 201

Edward the Confessor, 8, 54,

57, 58, 72, 127
Eleanor, Queen, 8, 60
English Roman Catholics, 207
Eustace de Vesci, 73, 122
Excommunication, 34, 41, 135,

141, 148, 195, 200, 206

213

2I4

INDEX

Falaise, Treaty of, 52
Fitz-Peter, Geoffrey, 53, 57,

60, 65, 209
Fitz- Walter, Robert, 68, 73,

122, 124, 140, 144
Forest Law, 9
Fox, George, 198
Franciscans, 179, 203
Freedom, Blow to, 164
Friars, 179, 182

Gasquet, Cardinal, 51, 66, 142
Geoffrey, Archdeacon, 42
Gregory the Seventh, 16
Grey, John de, 38
Gualo, 147, 152

Habeas Corpus Act, 131
Hemisham, Walter de, 210
Henry the First, 2, 12, 55, 58
Henry the Second, 3, 5, 52,

107, 167
Henry the Third, 149, 151-

155. 159. i?8, 201
Heretics, 17, 197, 207
Hildebrand, 16
Honorius the Third, 153, 158,

163, 170, 173, 175, 201, 207
Hubert Walter, archbishop, 3,

5, 6, 60, 128

Hugh of Lincoln, 3, 70, 161
Hugh of Wells, 44, 185

Ingleburga, 16

Innocent the Third, 5, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 33,
46, 50, 62, 67, 75, 136, 138,
142, 169

Interdict, 33, 57, 69, 173, 205

Investiture, 12

Ireland, 50, 129, 175

Isabella of AngoulSme, 10

Isidore (decretals), 172

Jews, 87, 196

John, King, 7, 9, 10, 21, 26, 28,
30. 33, 34, 37. 39-48. 60, 67,
73, 136, 149, 153, 201

Jurisdiction, papal, 141, 163,
171

Knights, Seven, 75
Knights, Twelve, 9, 105, 123

Lackland, John, 7, 91
Lambeth, Treaty of, 149
Lanfranc, Archbishop, 4, 6
Langton, Simon, 22, 36, 40,

41, 143, 164

Langton, Stephen, i, 6, 13, 14,

20, 21, 22, 23-27, 30-33, 36,

39, 41, 44, 52, 55, 58, 62, 67,

71, in, 130, 154, 164-212

Lateran Council, 17, 142

Legate, papal, 65-67, 148, 153,

158, 164, 167, 169
Liberty, 199
Lotario di Signi, 15
Louis of France, 146

Magna Charta, 9, 55, 75-130,

150, 158, 171, 206
Map, Walter de, 183
Marriage, clerical, 194
Marshall, 72, 124
Matthew of Paris, 47, 50, 59,

69, 153

Matthew of Westminster, 9
Merchants, 93, 101
Metropolitan, 205, 209
Monasteries, 4, 70, 200
Montfort, Simon de, 18

National Party, 58, 64, 67, 69,

145

Nicholas of Tusculum, 66, 67
Norgate, Miss, 65
Normandy, 144, 146, 162
Normans, 6, 10
Northwold, Hugh, abbot, 74
Norwich, Bishop of, 10-13,
20-38

Oseney, Synod of, 189
Otho, 163

Otto of Germany, 48
Oxford, 73

Pallium, ii

INDEX

215

Pandulph, 48, 66, 82, 127, 154,

160, 169

Papal pecuniary demand, 164
Paris, University of, 14, 23, 39
Patriot, 204
Peers, 93, 131
Pembroke, Earl, Marshal, 73,

81, 127, 134, 149, 150, 152
Penance, 35
Peter of Wakefield, 48
Peter's Pence, 49
Petition of Right, 133
Philip Augustus, King, 8, 9,

10, 36, 47, 144
Pontigny, 39,41, 46
Popes, u, 12, 13, 14, 25, 138,

164, 205
Porchester, 52
Poyning's Law, 129
Prayer-Book, 108
Primacy, English Church, 145,

158, 160, 165, 175, 209, 211

Reformation, The, 134, 208
Reformer, Church, 185
Reginald of Cornhill, 40
Reginald, sub-prior, n, 13, 22
Revocation of Charter, 137
Revolution, French, 199
Richard Grant, 210
Richard the First, 2, 3, 5, 107,

161

Rings, Four, 28
Roches, Peter de, 38, 157, 159
Rochester, 74, 148
Roger of Wendover, 24
Rome, n, 29, 142, 158, 163,

169, 174
Rouen, 10, 44
Rufus, King, 6, n, 12
Runnymede, 121, 126, 150

Sacraments, 34, 189, 192

St. Albans, 55, 57

St. Edmundsbury, 68, 72, 74

St. Paul's, 163

Samson, Abbot, 73

Sawtre, 197

Scutage, 89

Slindon, 164

Socage, 99, 101

Socialists, French, 199

Social Reform, 131, 180, 200,

204

Spilsby, 23
Stephen, King, 147
Submission to Papacy, 50, 67,

73> 169

Taxation, National, 152, 161

Toleration, 198

Tower of London, 72, 123, 126

Usurpation, Papal, 32

Vicar's stipend, 191
Villeins, 132, 200
Viterbo, 27

Walter of Coventry, 24
Warenne, Earl, 73, 81
Westminster, 56, 153
Widows, 85

William the First, I, 4, 9, 176
William the Lion, 52, 113
Winchester, 54, 58, 64, 71
Wives of clergy, 194
Worcester, 72
Wulfstan, Bishop, 176

York, 170

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