III.

them voluntary poverty: leaving a terrible curse upon any HENRY person that should presume to bring in any property among K. of Eng. them, or debauch the order with an estate.

July 7th.

In the year 1220, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, re- A. D. 1220. moved archbishop Becket's corpse in a very pompous manner, the king and almost all the bishops and temporal nobility being at the solemnity. The body was taken out of the marble coffin, and laid in a golden shrine, ornamented with jewels. This extraordinary respect was paid to his memory in the first year of his jubilee, as it was called, that is, fifty Paris, p. years after his murder.

Two years afterwards, the archbishop of Canterbury convened a synod at Oxford. This synod begins with denouncing excommunications for the crimes following.

In the first place, those are declared excommunicated, who maliciously injure the Church in her rights and liberties. 2ndly, Those who invade the prerogative, and disturb the peace of the kingdom, are put under the same censure. 3rdly, Those who are guilty of perjury, and subornation, are likewise excommunicated: And,

4thly, To mention no more, those who out of disaffection, favour, or mercenary views, refused to execute the king's writs against excommunicated persons, and contemned the jurisdiction of the Church, are declared excommunicated.

There are nine-and-forty canons passed in this synod, most of which have been mentioned already.

The seventh forbids the clergy either writing or dictating a dead warrant, or making part of the court, where any person is tried for his life.

The ninth obliges the parochial clergy to preach frequently, and visit the sick.

The fifteenth provides for the maintenance of vicars, and forbids the settling less than five marks a year upon them, unless in Wales, where the churches were more slenderly endowed.

By the seventeenth the bishop is obliged to administer an oath to those who come for institution, that they made no simoniacal contract for the presentation.

The eighteenth enjoins the bishop to appoint confessors in the respective archdeaconries of his diocese, to take the confessions of the rural deans and of the priests and rectors

310.

A. D. 1222.

A council at
Oxford.

LANG of parishes. And in cathedrals, the secular canons are to ΤΟΝ, make their confession to their bishop or dean, or to such persons as shall be assigned for that office by the bishop, dean, and chapter.

Abp. Cant.

Spelm.

Concil. vol.

11. p. 181.

A man

The nine-and-thirtieth forbids abbots, priors, and abbesses, taking any money of those who enter into the monastick state; with this proviso, that where the religious houses are poor, they are allowed to take a consideration for maintaining those they receive in clothes.

By the two-and-fortieth, monks are disabled from making their wills.

The other canons enjoining residence, guarding the revenues of the Church, regulating archidiaconal visitations, together with the habits and behaviour of the clergy, have most of them been settled by former councils, and are too long to mention.

At this council there was a deacon presented for apostacy. burned for This man, to gain the favour of a Jewish woman, had cirmisbelief before the cumcised himself, and renounced Christianity. Upon his heretico being convicted before the council, he was first degraded, comburendo. and afterwards sentenced to the stake by the secular court,

statute de

Chron.

and burnt accordingly. There was likewise a peasant brought before the council, who, either out of knavery or madness, blasphemously pretended himself to be the son of God, and showed the five wounds of the cross upon his body; this impostor was sentenced by the council to be imWikes. p. prisoned during life, and fed only with bread and water. The next year, the king convened the barons to London, The arch- upon the octaves of Epiphany. At this meeting, the archbishop moves bishop and the rest of the nobility petitioned the king to for the confirmation of confirm the liberties of the subject, granted by king John.

Concil. tom.

11. col. 287.

Magna
Charta.

To this, William Brewer, one of the king's privy council, replied, that these liberties were extorted, and therefore in equity the grant ought not to bind the crown. The archbishop, disgusted with this reply, told the baron with some warmth, that if he had any true affection for the king, he would not revive an old quarrel nor obstruct the settlement of the kingdom. The king, perceiving the archbishop disturbed, frankly confessed he had sworn the grant of those liberties, and would not fail to make his oath good. And in pursuance of this declaration, he ordered the high sheriffs

III.

of every county to summon twelve knights or other persons HENRY of condition within the shire to make an enquiry upon oath K. of Eng. what liberties were enjoyed by the subject in the reign of his grandfather, king Henry; and to return the king an account at the quindenes of Easter.

429.

ambassa

France.

Upon the death of Philip, king of France, which happened The arch about the beginning of August, king Henry sent the arch-bishop of Canterbury, bishop of Canterbury, with three other bishops, to the pre- &c. sent sent king Lewis. Their business was to demand the resti- dor into tution of Normandy, and some other territories in France, in pursuance of the articles sworn at Staines, when Lewis was in England; to this king Lewis answered, that he was ready to justify his claim to Normandy, &c., provided the king of England would come over, and refer the trial of his title to the French courts. He answered farther, that the king of England had made an infraction upon the treaty at Staines, by obliging the French, who were Paris, p. taken prisoners at Lincoln, to a high ransom.

317.

among the

Albigenses.

About this time, the Albigenses set up one Bartholomew Bishops for their antipope; he resided at first in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia, and afterwards settled in the neighbourhood of Toulouse. He consecrated several bishops, and took the administration of the Church upon him. This account, amongst other things, the bishop of Porto gives of him in a letter to the archbishop of Rouën.

Ibid.

Rights of the Chris

p. 220.

I mention the consecration of bishops, because a late author affirms, that the Albigenses had none but laymen among them. This year, Simon de Apulia, bishop of Exeter, departed tian Church this life. Matthew of Westminster gives him the character asserted, of a prelate of great learning and capacity for business. The city of Exeter is said to have been divided into parishes in his time. The see, after about a year's vacancy, was filled by William Brewer, of whom more afterwards. Godwin in In the beginning of the year 1225, the king kept his Episc. ExChristmas at Westminster, and was attended, according to A. D. 1225. custom, by a great assembly of the lords spiritual and temporal. In this parliament, as it may be styled, the king moved for a fifteenth of the stock and money of the kingdom. The bishops and barons, upon consultation, told the king they were ready to satisfy his demands provided he

on.

TON,

LANG- would grant them the liberties they had formerly petitioned Abp. Cant. for. The king satisfied their request, and ordered Magna Charta, and the Forest Charter, to be drawn up, sealed with the broad seal, and copies of them to be transmitted into every county.

The grant of
Magna
Charta.

Se

of Institutes, fol. 76.

ton de

Sir Edward Coke, in his exposition of the Magna Charta, mentions Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury, and E. bishop of London, at the head of the witnesses, by which E. must be meant Eustachius. Now, it is certain, in the first place, that Boniface and Eustachius were not contemporary prelates, the last being dead before the first was Coke's St promoted to that order. Secondly, Boniface was not consecrated archbishop of Canterbury till the year 1244, which was nineteen years after the passing of Magna Angl. Sacr. Charta. Sir Edward might possibly be misled by the copy pars 1. p. 115. Whar- of the printed statutes, where Lord, archbishop of CanterEpisc. Lon-bury, is set as first witness. If we had no better authority than either of these copies, the credit of Magna Charta might be suspected, and the fundamentals of the constitution called in question: and for this reason, a considerable antiquary, hinted at by Dr. Gale, is of opinion, that neither the original, nor any exact copy of this charter was to be met Scriptores with. It is true, this charter was afterwards confirmed in the twenty-first year of this king; but then Edmund, and not Boniface, was archbishop of Canterbury. But the Annals of the Monastery of Burton remove the contradictions in chronology, retrieve the credit of the record, and make Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, sign the charter. And Burton, p. thus the objection in Gale vanishes, and truth and time are reconciled.

dinens.

15. in præ

fat. Chronic. Heming

ford, p.

570.

Annal.
Monast.

276.

A. D. 1226.

The pope moves for two prebends, &c.

appointed.

The next year, in the octaves of Epiphany, there was a synod convened at Westminster to receive some proposals from the court of Rome: and here, the nuncio Otho read and is dis- his master's letter in the council. In this letter, the pope complained that the holy Church of Rome had lain under the reproach of covetousness a long time; that this vice, which was reckoned the root of all evil, was charged upon her, because nobody could dispatch any business in the court of Rome without presents and great expense: that since the poverty of the see was the occasion of this scandal, they ought to relieve their mother's indigence, and prevent so

III.

infamous an imputation. "Now," as the pope continues, HENRY "we are forced to receive these gratuities, otherwise the conveniences of life would be cut off, and we should have nothing to support the dignity of our station. That, therefore, we may neither suffer in our dignity, nor lie under the scandal of avarice, we have thought upon the following expedient which is, that you would grant us two prebends out of every cathedral; one of which to be allowed from the bishop's revenue, and the other from that of the chapter; and that in all the monasteries we may have the allowance of two monks assigned us, in proportion to the value of the abbey. Upon your granting this request, our court shall do you justice gratis, without any expectations."

The bishops and abbots, surprised at this motion, debated the matter among themselves, and sent John, archdeacon of Bedford, with their answer. He told the nuncio that the proposal was a business of great importance: that the interest of the king, and the other patrons of monasteries, not to mention of the archbishops, bishops, and abbots, was considerably touched in the question; that at present the king was sick, and several of the prelates were absent; that for this reason they could come to no resolution. After he had made this report, John Marshall, and some other gentlemen, charged the prelates, in the king's name, not to engage their lay fees to the see of Rome, lest, by any such incumbrance, the king might lose the services reserved upon their tenures.

The nuncio, thus balked, adjourned the synod to Midlent, in hopes of better success; but the archbishop of Canterbury defeated his expectation, and prevailed with the pope to recall his commission. He told his holiness that, Otho, being a foreigner, was no proper person to transact an affair of that weight and difficulty: that himself being a native, a cardinal, and archbishop of Canterbury, was more likely to carry the point. The pope, overreached by these suggestions, took away Otho's commission, and sent him an order to come immediately to Rome: and, at the same time, the archbishop of Canterbury had an authority from his holiness to convene the prelates, and manage the affair with which Otho was charged.

The king afterwards convened the lords spiritual and

Paris, p.

328.

430.