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WILLIAM I.

silence. None of them are allowed to go out of their monastery, excepting the prior and the steward. No women K. of Eng. are permitted to come to their churches. This order, though begun in France, was transplanted into England: for which reason I have given it a place in this work. The reader may see a farther account of the rule in the Monasticon.

Baron. An

nal. tom. 11.

1086. Mo

p. 949. Du

Eccles.

11. p. 127,

&c.

liam.

To return to the Conqueror: the king having thus se- ad Ann. cured his brother, prevented the danger of his undertaking, nast. Anand settled the kingdom to his satisfaction, made another glic. vol. 1. voyage into Normandy; where, by the fatigue of the cam- Pin. new paign, he contracted a distemper, of which he died Septem- Hist. cent. ber 9th, 1087, and was buried at Caen, in that province. Huntington gives this prince a sort of a mixed character, Huntingand throws an alloy into his good qualities. He makes him ton's character of stand very much to the point of interest; that he affected king Wilfame to an immoderate degree; that though he was very courteous and complaisant to the Church, yet those that opposed his designs in any thing, were sure to be overborne : witness the rugged usage of his brother above-mentioned. He loved hunting the deer to an extravagant excess, and demolished several towns and churches in Hampshire to make New Forest for his diversion. He was very successful in his undertakings: for besides the advantages he gained in Bretagne, and other provinces in France, he made himself an absolute monarch in England, and ordered so exact an enquiry into the estates of his subjects there, that there was not so much as a hide of land in the whole country, with which he was unacquainted, either as to value, situation, or to whom it belonged. This general survey, called Huntig. Doom's-Day-Book, was made in the year 1086. To pro- fol. 212. ceed, he brought Scotland and Wales to submission and Ingulph. homage: and as for England, notwithstanding the commotions occasioned by the Conquest, he quelled all disturbances to that degree, that a woman might have travelled safely with a bag of gold all over the country. When he Hunting. lay upon his death-bed, he comforted himself by recollecting he had never offered violence to the Church; that he had endeavoured to stand clear of simony; that in the disposal of ecclesiastical preferments, he always had respect to the learning and piety of the person; and, therefore, he desired

Hist. I. 7.

Hist. fol. 79.

ibid.

LANFRANC,

the clergy to consider the affection and regard he had Abp. Cant. always shewed to their order, and assist him with their prayers by way of return.

Church.

The civil

astical

rated.

tion, n. 6.

To do this prince justice, he was not so far governed by the rigour of his temper, or elated by his conquests, as to The Con- lose all impressions of religion: for, to do him right, he queror's Justice and took care of the interest of the Church in several considerfavour to the able instances. To mention some of them: he parted the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and made a law, that no and ecclesi- bishop or archdeacon should hold pleas in the hundred courts sepa- concerning ecclesiastical matters, and that no cause relating to the discipline and government of the Church, should be brought before a secular magistrate; but that every person that was answerable to his ordinary for the breach of the canons should make his appearance at the place appointed See Collec- by the bishop, and that the process should be managed, and sentence given by the direction of the ecclesiastical constitutions. And if any person should be so haughty, as to refuse to appear at the bishop's court, he was to be excommunicated after the third summons: and if after all this, the offender continued stubborn, the sheriff, upon demand, was to bring him to reason by the posse of the county. And here, no sheriff, king's officer, or any lay person whatsoever, was permitted to encroach upon the bishop's jurisdiction, or intermeddle with ecclesiastical affairs. This law is said to have been made by the advice of the archbishops, bishops, and other great men. Before this reformation of justice, as the charter calls it, the bishop used to sit with the sheriff in the county court, and with the hundredary in the hundred court, if he pleased, where ecclesiastical and civil causes were tried by their joint authorities: but from this constitution of king William's, the separation of both jurisdictions bears date.

256.

restitution

of the

Another instance of this prince's regard to the Church, was his precept for the restitution of what had been taken He orders a away from the bishopricks and abbeys. We may easily imagine a victorious army of foreigners would not always be Church conscientious enough to distinguish between what was by his Nor- sacred and secular: upon such an advantage the guards of religion are frequently broken through, and the sin of sacrilege overlooked. The king was sensible this was the case

lands seized

mans.

WIL

LIAM I.

in many places in England, and that the privilege of the Church was not of force sufficient to make the Normans K. of Eng. lose the opportunities of good plunder. When, therefore, the heat and license of the war was over, and the times grew calm enough for the doing justice; the king directed his writ to Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, Galfrid, bishop of Constance, Robert, earl of Ou, and other great men of the kingdom of England; by virtue of which they were to summon the sheriffs of the respective counties, commanding them, in the king's name, to restore the bishopricks and abbeys, the lands, lordships, and jurisdictions, which the bishops or abbots had surrendered to them, either out of fear, or any other unwarrantable motive; or which they had seized by violence themselves. And unless the sheriffs obeyed the order, and made full restitution, the great men to whom the precept was directed were to compel them by force of arms.

See Records, n. 7.

cords, n. 8.

This was a general order for doing justice to the Church, to which we may add another precept, sent to the sheriffs in favour of the abbey of Ely: it is for the restoring of all See Relands, privileges, and customs which belonged to that monastery at the death of king Edward the Confessor. Amongst other privileges and jurisdictions of the abbey, the writ makes a recital of these following: Sacha, and Socha; Toll and Team, and Infanganetheof, Hamsocna and Grithbrice and Flithwite and Ferdwite. Now these being all privileges granted to baronies and lordships by the Saxon kings, I shall explain them in a word or two to the reader.

manors ex

Spelman et

Gloss. Fle

Sacha imports a jurisdiction granted by the crown to a The pririleges of lord of a manor, to hold pleas, punish misdemeanours, and receive forfeitures. Socha is said to signify the precinct or Brompton's extent in which the Sacha and other privileges take place; Jurisdiction though in the opinion of Fleta, Socha signifies the liberty of of Courts. holding a court baron, and Sacha, a discharge from appear- Somner. ing at the county or hundred court. Toll imports an exemp- ta. 1. 1. c. tion from paying toll in any part of the kingdom. Team, in 47. the Saxon times, as Sir Henry Spelman understands it, signified a privilege of holding pleas concerning warranty of titles; it is likewise taken for a royalty, granted by the king's charter to the lord of a manor, for the keeping, restraining, and judging bondmen, neifs, and villains, with

LAN

FRANC,

their children, goods, and chattels. Infanganetheof signifies Abp. Cant. a jurisdiction for trying any thief apprehended within the liberties of a manor. Some restrain this privilege only to

cords, n. 9. See Records, n. 10.

the tenants of a manor, and others make it reach only to those who were taken in the act of stealing, or with the stolen goods about them; but the general signification of a thief, under any circumstances of proof against him, seems to be the truest. Hamsocna signifies a fine levied upon those who were guilty of breaking into a house, and the lord who had the privilege of Hamsocna, had both the cognizance of the cause, and the profit of the fine. Grithbrice was a breach of the king's peace. Flithwite signifies a penalty for riots and frays; and Ferdwite was a fine payable for refusing to serve the king in the field: and those lordships that had these fines granted to them, had likewise the jurisdiction of trying the offender.

William, To proceed: the Conqueror granted a charter of consibishop of London, a derable privileges and immunities to the cathedral of St. great bene- Paul's. And here it may not be improper to take notice, factor to that city. that William, bishop of London, procured a very beneficial See Recharter of the Conqueror for that city. This being so considerable an obligation, there was an anniversary respect paid to his memory; it being the custom for the lord mayor and aldermen of London, to go in procession every year about the bishop's tomb in the cathedral; and in the seventeenth century they ordered a very honourable inscription to be cut upon it. Bishop Godwin is mistaken in assigning this bishop's death to the year 1070, for it is certain he was present at two London synods, the last of which was held in the year 1075.

Spelman.

Concil. p. 7. vol. 2.

Abbey.

The next considerable occurrence relating to Church affairs in this reign, is the charter granted by the Conqueror The charter to Battle Abbey in Sussex. This abbey, as the charter sets of Battle- forth, was founded in the place where this prince gained the victory over Harold. That which is most remarkable in the grant is, the exemption of the abbot and convent from episcopal visitation. From hence it may probably be cords, n. 11. inferred, that the Conqueror looked upon himself as supreme ordinary, and the fountain of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But to this it may be answered, that though the charter runs in the royal style, and goes much upon the

See Re

257.

WIL

LIAM I.

the Church

upon the

Conqueror's authority, yet it was not passed without the consent of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, K. of Eng. bishop of Chichester, and the rest of the English bishops. The indeAnd here Lanfranc, and Stigand are the only prelates men- pendency of tioned by name; to shew that the consent of the archbishop of the province and the bishop of the diocese, was thought state,in matters purely necessary to make the exemption firm and canonical: and spiritual. that the Conqueror's single grant reached no farther than property and civil privilege. This charter being thus fortified with the bishop's consent and subscription, and excommunication denounced by them, against those that should violate the privileges, gives the matter an ecclesiastical face, and carries the sanction of a synod.

Sir Edward Coke, who disputes strongly for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the crown, advances a wrong ground Coke's Refor this authority. He founds this spiritual commission of ports, part 5. princes, upon their being anointed with oil at their coronation: Reges sacro oleo uncti sunt spiritualis jurisdictionis capaces. But this is a mistake; for if the anointing with Ibid. f. 16. oil conveys a spiritual authority, then great numbers of the laity, in the primitive times, would have had this privilege;

for this ceremony of anointing was frequently practised upon St. James 5. the sick for several centuries: and yet, I believe, it was never thought such persons commenced governors of the Church upon their recovery.

Irish Re

The case of præmunire, reported by sir John Davis, Davis's argues learnedly against the pope's encroachments; but ports. then the case mistakes, in affirming the pope's jurisdiction in England began with the Norman Conquest: for it is plain, Ibid. fol. this prelate pretended to a superintendency over the English 87, 88, 89. Church before that period. To give an instance or two: the pope granted an exemption from episcopal visitation to the abbey of Malmsbury, in the reign of king Ina, in the eighth century. Pope Leo III. removed the metropolitical Malmsbur. see from Lichfield, and restored it to Canterbury in the DePontif. p. ninth. And in the eleventh century, king Edward the 352, 353. Confessor, in his letter to Nicholas II. salutes him as supreme Scriptores. governor of the Church, sends to him for a dispensation, Spelman. and received his legates: but after all there is no good con- 1. p. 324. sequence from fact to right; neither have I any intention to Rival de Vit. et Miracl. Edw. Confes. p. 387. Florent. Wigorn. ad Ann. 1062.

1. 5.

Inter 15.

Concil. vol.

Aildred

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