Vid. supra ad An. 1162. then parcel of the crown of England, I shall mention the canons. I. Children or minors were not to be admitted to benefices with cure of souls. II. The sons of priests were not allowed to succeed their fathers in their livings. The III. and IV. canons have been already mentioned in the Council of Tours. V. Priests of larger parishes, where the benefice will allow it, are obliged to entertain another priest to assist them. By the sixth, none were to be ordained priests without a title. The seventh decrees, that the churches should not be let See 3 and to farm for the term of a year; i. e. not by the laity. 4 canon of the Council of Tours. VIII. That none of the third part of the tithes should be detained from the priest that officiates. IX. That those of the laity who had any estate in tithes might dispose of them to what qualified clerk they pleased, Id est, after upon condition that after him they should revert to the Church to which in right they belonged. the first presenta tion. Hoveden, fol. 304. X. No husband or wife was to have the liberty to turn religious, when either of them chose to live in the world or continue a secular, unless they were both considerably advanced in old age. XI. All persons who were in any condition of health and strength, especially clerks and knights, or lay gentry, were obliged to fast and abstain from flesh during the solemnity of Advent. XII. That clerks should not encumber themselves with secular jurisdictions, under the penalty of forfeiting their ecclesiastical preferments. XIII. The thirteenth canon not being passed, I shall omit it. While these affairs were transacted in Normandy, the young king, by the advice of his governors, sent for Odo, prior of Canterbury, to court, and ordered him and his convent to proceed to the choice of an archbishop. The prior of Canter- and his monks obeyed the summons, and insisted that the choice might be free, according to custom. This motion bury. II. was not relished by the court, who gave the prior three HENRY weeks' time to come prepared with a more agreeable answer. K. of Eng. When this term was out, the prior waited on the court a second time, and held constant to the same request. The court being displeased at his noncompliance, ordered him to make a voyage into Normandy, to know the old king's pleasure. The prior waiting upon the old king, found him in a very mild and condescending disposition. The king knew Odo to be a man of resolution, and was afraid he and his convent might pitch upon a person of the same inflexible temper with the late archbishop. He earnestly desired him, therefore, to use his interest with the convent to choose the bishop of Baïeux. It seems this prelate was of a very manageable humour, and likely to have been perfectly at the disposal of the court. Upon the prior's return into England, the bishops and clergy, together with the convent of Canterbury, met at London; but the freedom of the election being checked, the monks refused to be overruled, and so the meeting was broken up and nothing done. Chronic. But not long after, the prior and convent, considering the 1423. niceness of the juncture, and being afraid they might be A. D. 1173. counted obstinate, pitched upon three men, and desired Richard de Lucy, justiciary of England and prime minister, to persuade the king that one of them might stand. The justiciary agreed to this motion, and Roger, abbot of Bec, was solemnly chosen at London, by the prior and convent, Ibid. the bishops and the king giving their consent to the election. But here they were all disappointed; for no persuasions could prevail with the person elected to accept the prefer ment. This year there broke out an unhappy misunderstanding between the king and his sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, who all deserted him, and made an alliance with the king of France. It was thought queen Eleanor, their mother, prompted them to this disobedience, and debauched them from their duty. To proceed to the Church: about the end of April there were six sees filled by the interest and direction of the court. Reginald, son of Joceline, bishop of Salisbury, was made bishop of Bath; Richard de Ivelcestre, archdeacon of Poictiers, was preferred to the see of Winchester; Robert Ibid. 381. RICH- Foliot, to that of Hereford; Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Id. col. 1425. Richard elected But when they came to move for the filling the see of Canterbury, the prior Odo and the prelates could not agree upon the circumstances of the election; at last they agreed to offer two persons to the king in Normandy, Richard, prior of Dover, and another. The king, though he would openly declare for neither, sent private instructions in favour of Richard. Upon this recommendation, he was elected at Westminster, upon the archbishop octaves of Whitsuntide, being the fifth of June; but, before his consecration could be performed, there came a letter from the young king to forbid the solemnity, acquainting them, withal, that he had appealed to the pope against the election. by the convent. And confirmed by the pope. This order shocked the bishops, and put them to a stand, though some of them were for going on with the consecration, notwithstanding the appeal. However, at last, they agreed to send their agents to the pope, and that the archbishop elect should take a voyage himself, and solicit his business in person. When Richard came to Rome, he found the conclave divided between the interest of the young king and his father; but, at last, upon a report being spread that both the kings were agreed, the pope confirmed the election, consecrated Richard at Easter, gave him the pall, and constituted him his legate. Reginald, bishop of Bath, was now at Rome, to procure his confirmation, and that of the other five prelates lately A. D. 1174. elected. The pope was displeased that they did not all appear in person, and asked, particularly, why the elect of Ely was not there? To this Berter, of Orleans, the young king's ambassador, replied somewhat profanely, " And, if it please Evangeli- your holiness, he has a Gospel excuse.' "What is that?" excusatio- says the pope. "He has married a wife," says Berter," and therefore cannot come." cam habet nem. Hoveden, fol. 307. 99 And now the old king was extremely distressed: for the king of France, and the earl of Flanders, had lately sent a body of men to make a descent upon England. These troops, at their landing, were, by the young king's order, joined by Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk. II. William, king of Scots, likewise took advantage of the op- HENRY portunity, and invaded Northumberland with an army of Welsh and Scots. This army harassed the country in a terrible manner, and carried on the war with the utmost rage and barbarity. Chronic. 1427. When things were thus embroiled, the king was, as it Gervas. col. were, abandoned by all his subjects, and had few but foreigners to depend on. However, he was resolved to make a push to restore his affairs in England. He landed at Southampton on the eighth of July; and before he undertook any publick business, he went to Canterbury to make a publick acknowledgment of his regret for the death of the late archbishop. And when he came within sight of the church where the archbishop was buried, he alighted from his horse, and walked barefoot in the habit of a pilgrim till he came to Becket's tomb. And after he had prayed, in a posture of prostration, for a considerable time, he put himself upon extraordinary discipline, and was The king's discipline scourged by all the convent of Christ's Church. He spent voluntary. all that day and night in prayer, without the least refreshment, and would not suffer so much as a carpet or any other convenience should be brought him to kneel on. He be- Ibid. et stowed great liberalities upon the church of Canterbury: Hist. Angl. Matt. Paris, and here, the historians observe, that the same day he left p. 130. Nubrigen. lib. Canterbury, William, king of Scots, was defeated and taken 2. cap. 34. prisoner at Alnwick. And now his successes followed so fast, that within three weeks the invasions and insurrections in England were disappointed and suppressed, and all the towns and castles, seized by the enemy, surrendered to him. Hoveden, This unexpected turn of prosperity, is attributed to the re- Chronic. gard paid to Becket's memory, and the strength of his Gervas. et patronage. And for this, the writers of that time are almost as positive as if they were inspired with certainty, or had been the archbishop's expresses from the other world. Neither was the king's good fortune confined to England, but spread through his other dominions in France. For now his sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, quitted their rebellion, and submitted to his mercy: and the young king, to prevent all suspicions of misbehaviour, swore allegiance to Hoveden, his father. Things being thus settled, the king and his son 310. fol. 308. Matt. Paris. fol. 309, RICH- A. D. 1175. Henry set sail for England, and arrived at Portsmouth upon Abp. Cant, the seventh of May. When they came to London, they found a synod of the province of Canterbury ready to sit. The decrees, though subscribed by the synod, are published by the archbishop, and the authority runs in his name. The canons are these. A synod at ter. The canons run in the archbishop's name. Ibid. I. The first forbids the marriage of the clergy under the penalty of deprivation. II. The second forbids the clergy appearing at drinking entertainments, or refreshing themselves at taverns or publick houses; except when upon a journey. The penalty Ex Concil. is degradation. Carthagin. 382. III. Those in holy orders are not allowed to concern themselves in trials of life and death, and are neither to pass nor execute any sentence for the loss of limbs; and if any clergyman broke through this order, he was to forfeit his dignity and preferment. And by the last clause in the Ex Concil. canon, no priest is allowed to serve as high sheriff, under the penalty of excommunication. Tolitan. IV. Those clerks who wore their hair long, were to have the mortification of being cropped by the archdeacon. They were likewise obliged to a proper gravity in their Ex Concil. habit. Agathens. V. The fifth canon complains that some clergymen, either upon the score of their ignorance, misbehavionr, defect in birth, title, or age, despairing to get orders from their diocesan, travelled out of their diocese, and sometimes were ordained by transmarine bishops, or counterfeited such foreign ordinations. To prevent these irregularities, the canon declares such orders void, and forbids receiving such clerks under that pretended character, or suffering them to officiate, on the penalty of excommunication. And if any bishop of the province should either ordain, or admit any such unqualified clerk, he was to be suspended from giving the same distinction of orders till he had made satisfaction to the archbishop. The latter part of the canon decrees against trying criminal causes in a church or churchyard; Ex Concil. one reason assigned, is, because places of sanctuary and Chalcedon, protection ought not to be made courts of terror and sanguinary punishment. et Cartha gin. &c. |
