II. make oath, or give security to continue upon the place HENRY where they live; but only to abide by the judgment of the Church, in order to their absolution. VII. No person that holds in chief of the king, or any of his barons, shall be excommunicated, or any of their estates put under an interdict, before application made to the king, provided he is in the kingdom: and in case his highness is out of England, then the justiciary must be acquainted with the dispute, in order to make satisfaction; and thus that which belongs to the cognizance of the king's court must be tried there, and that which belongs to the court Christian must be remitted to its jurisdiction. Upon the mention of these two articles, it may not be amiss to give the reader the old form of excommunication used in the English Church. Forma Solemnis Excommunicationis. 352. Ex auctoritate Dei Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, necnon et Sanctæ Mariæ genetricis Dei, et Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et Sancti Michaelis, et sanctorum angelorum et archangelorum, et Sancti Petri et Pauli; et sanctorum apostolorum, et Sancti Stephani et sanctorum martyrum, et Sancti Martini et sanctorum confessorum, et Sanctæ Mariæ Magdalenæ, et Sanctæ Katerinæ, et omnium sanctarum virginum et omnium Sanctorum Dei, excommunicamus, damnamus, anathematizamus, et a liminibus sanctæ matris Ecclesiæ sequestramus illos; ut, quos maledicere statuimus, maledicti sint, intus et extra, nullam societatem habeant Christianorum, maledicti sint ambulando, sedendo, stando, manducando, bibendo, vigilando, dormiendo: maledicti sint in domo, in vico, in agris, et in sylvis, in terris et in aquis; maledicti sint in omnibus membris, a planta pedis usque ad verticem, non sit in eis sanitas. Sit pars eorum cum Dathan et Abiram, et Nerone, et Simone Mago, et cum Juda proditore Domini; nisi resipuerint, et ad emendationem venerint: et sicut ex- ExBiblioth. tinguuntur candela istæ, ita extinguantur animæ eorum in tellius, E. inferno, Fiat, fiat, fiat, Amen. To proceed: VIII. In case of appeals in ecclesiastical causes, the first step is to be made from the archdeacon to the bishop; and Cotton. Vi 18. VOL. II. T BECKET, from the bishop to the archbishop; and if the archbishop Abp. Cant. fails to do justice, a farther recourse may be had to the king, by whose order the controversy is to be finally decided in the archbishop's court. Neither shall it be lawful for either of the parties to move for any farther remedy without leave from the crown. IX. If a difference happens to arise between any clergyman and layman concerning any tenement, and the clerk pretends it held by frank almoine, and the layman pleads it a lay fee; in this case the tenure shall be tried by the enquiry and verdict of twelve sufficient men of the neighbourhood, summoned according to the custom of the realm. And if the tenement or thing in controversy shall be found frank almoine, the dispute concerning it shall be tried in the ecclesiastical court; but if it is brought in a lay fee, the suit shall be followed in the king's courts, unless both the plaintiff and defendant hold the tenement in question of the same bishop; in which case the cause shall be tried in the court of such bishop or baron; with this farther proviso, that he who is seized of the thing in controversy shall not be disseized pending the suit, upon the score of the verdict above mentioned. X. He who holds of the king, in any city, castle, borough, or resides upon any of the demesne lands of the crown; in case he is cited by the archdeacon or bishop to answer for any misbehaviour belonging to their cognizance; if he refuses to obey their summons and withstand the sentence of the court, it shall be lawful for the ordinary to put him under an interdict, but not to excommunicate him till the king's principal officer of the town shall be pre-acquainted with the case, in order to enjoin him to make satisfaction to the Church. And if such officer or magistrate shall fail in his duty, he shall be fined by the king's judges. And then the bishop may exert his discipline on the refractory person as he thinks fit. XI. All archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical persons, who hold of the king in chief, and the tenure of a barony, are, for that reason, obliged to appear before the king's justices and ministers, to answer the duties of their tenure, and to observe all the usages and customs of the realm; and, like other barons, are bound to be present at II. trials in the king's court, till sentence is to be pronounced HENRY for the losing of life or limbs. XII. When any archbishoprick, bishoprick, abbey, or priory of royal foundation, becomes vacant, the king is to make seizure; from which time all the profits and issues are to be paid into the exchequer, as if they were the demesne lands of the crown. And when it is determined that the vacancy shall be filled up, the king is to summon the most considerable persons of the chapter to court, and the election is to be made in the chapel royal, with the consent of our sovereign lord the king, and by the advice of such persons of the government as his highness shall think fit to make use of. At which time the person elected, before his consecration, shall be obliged to do homage and fealty to the king, as his liege lord; which homage shall be performed in the usual form, with a clause for the saving the privilege of his order. XIII. If any of the temporal barons or great men shall encroach upon the rights or property of any archbishop, bishop, or archdeacon, and refuse to make satisfaction for wrong done by themselves or their tenants, the king shall do justice to the party aggrieved. And if any person shall disseize the king of any part of his lands, or trespass upon his prerogative, the archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons, shall call him to an account, and oblige him to make the crown restitution. That is, they were to excommunicate such disseizers and injurious persons, in case they proved refractory and incorrigible. XIV. The goods and chattels of those who lie under forfeitures of felony or treason, are not to be detained in any church or churchyard, to secure them against seizure and justice; because such goods are the king's property, whether they are lodged within the precincts of a church, or without it. XV. All actions and pleas of debt, though never so solemn in the circumstances of the contract, shall be tried in the king's courts. K. of Eng. 353. 1. 5. Gervas. XVI. The sons of copy holders are not to be ordained Quadrilog. without the consent of the lord of the manor where they Chronic. were born. These are all the articles of the Constitutions of Clarendon, Paris, Hist. Ang, p. 100. T 2 col. 1386. et deinc. Mat. BECKET, of which the first, the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, Abp. Cant, ninth, tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth, were nulled and voided Concil. Labb. et Coss. tom. 11. col.1431. et deinc. appeals the controversy was to be ended in the by the pope. The eighth article, for the regulation of appeals, is particularly remarkable: for here, in case the archbishop was defective in doing justice, recourse might be had to the In case of king; but then the controversy was still to be determined in the archbishop's court, and not elsewhere: which shews, that the cause was not taken out of the hands of the Church, archbishop's but that the judges were to be ecclesiasticks, and the form of the proceedings governed by the methods of the court Christian. The last clause of the article, which forbids any farther proceeding without the king's leave, is a plain prohibition of appeals to the pope; and therefore we need not wonder to find this article cassated by Alexander III. court. Fitz-Stephen, p. 22. Stillingfleet's Se. By the eleventh article, the bishops, like other barons, are bound to be present at trials of peers in criminal causes, and not to depart the court till sentence is to be pronounced for losing of life or limbs. For this reason, when archbishop Becket was prosecuted before the lords spiritual and temporal at Northampton, the king commanded the bishops upon their homage and allegiance, to join the lay barons, and agree upon a sentence against Becket. And when they endeavoured to excuse themselves upon their primate's prohibition, the king replied, that prohibition could not oblige them against the Constitutions of Clarendon. From hence it appears, that it is a great mistake to supcond Part of pose, that by the Constitutions of Clarendon, the jurisdiction Ecclesiasti- of bishops was limited; and that it was not to extend to the p. 267. et loss of life or limb. For it appears plainly, both from the deinceps. article, and the course of Becket's trial at Northampton, cal Cases, that the bishops going out of the court, in cases of blood, before the bench came ad diminutionem vel ad mortem, was no limitation of their power: but on the contrary, it was a privilege they insisted on, and a liberty allowed them upon the score of the canon law. For, in archbishop Lanfranc's time, the sixth canon of the eleventh council of Toledo was passed in a synod at London: by virtue of which, no bishop, abbot, or clergyman, was to judge any person to the loss of Vid. supra life or limb. Upon the whole, from this article of Clarendon, and the archbishop's trial at Northampton, it is evident, ad An. 1075. II. that the lords spiritual were tried by their peers: that the HENRY bishops were joined with the temporal barons upon such occasions: that their going out of the court before sentence for the loss of life or limb, was a privilege in consequence of the canons, and not any compulsion upon the score of imperfect peerage. Gervas. Archbishop Becket, after the breaking up of this convention, retired from court; and being very much dissatisfied for going this length in his compliance, suspended himself from officiating in the church about forty days, till he received absolution from pope Alexander, then at Sens. Soon after, Rotro, archbishop of Rouën, was dispatched by col. 1388. the pope into England, to make up the breach between the king and the archbishop. But the king would by no means consent to an accommodation, unless the Clarendon Constitutions were confirmed by the pope's bull. This condition being refused, the king sent two of his clerks, John of Oxford, and Geoffrey Ridel, to pope Alexander, to desire that Roger, archbishop of York, might be made his holiness's legate for all England. But the pope being sensible this motion was made to check the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury, thought himself obliged to deny the request. However, being willing to gratify the king, and stop the progress of the rupture, he proposed to make the king his legate for England; but with this proviso, that his highness Hoveden, should not distress the archbishop of Canterbury, or do 282. anything to his prejudice. Annal. fol. Gervas. refuses the The king, who ordered his agents to move for this lega- The king tine commission, would have been well pleased with it, had pope's leit come clear and unembarrassed: but this encumbrance in gatine commission, and the proviso put him in a rage, and made him return the why. instrument. Hoveden et deavours to sea, but is ed. Archbishop Becket, despairing of the king's favour, en- The archdeavoured to get beyond sea, hoping by this means the bishop enking might relent upon recollection, and receive him upon go beyond easier terms. To this purpose, he procured a ship, and disappointembarked; but before he could reach the coast of France, the crew repented their taking him on board; and being afraid of falling under the king's displeasure, they brought him back to the English shore. The king was glad to hear the archbishop miscarried in his escape; being apprehen- Gervas. ib. |
