CENT. XII.

A misunder

arises between Alex

XII. Alexander III., who was rendered so famous by his long and successful contest with Frederic I., standing was also engaged in a warm dispute with Henry II. king of England, which was occasioned by the arroander III. gance of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury. and Henry In the council of Clarendon, which that prince held England. in the year 1164, several laws were enacted, by

II. king of

which the king's power and jurisdiction over the clergy were accurately explained, and the rights and privileges of the bishops and priests reduced within narrower bounds'. Becket refused obedience to

See Matth. Paris, Histor. Major, p. 82, 83, 101, 114. Dav. Wilkins, Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ, tom. i. p. 434.

Henry II had formed the wise project of bringing the clergy under the jurisdiction of the civil courts, on account of the scandalous abuse they had made of their immunities, and the crimes which the ecclesiastical tribunals let pass with impunity. The Constitutions of Clarendon, which consisted of sixteen articles, were drawn up for this purpose: and, as they are proper to give the reader a just idea of the prerogatives and privileges that were claimed equally by the king and the clergy, and which occasioned of consequence such warm debates between state and church, it will not be altogether useless to transcribe them at length.

I. When any difference relating to the right of patronage arises between the laity, or between the clergy and laity, the controversy is to be tried and ended in the King's Court.

II. Those churches which are fees of the crown, cannot be granted away in perpetuity without the king's consent.

III. When the clergy are charged with any misdemeanor, and summoned by the justiciary, they shall be obliged to make their appearance in his court, and plead to such parts of the indictment as shall be put to them; and likewise to answer such articles in the ecclesiastical courts as they shall be prosecuted for by that jurisdiction; always provided, that the king's justi. ciary shall send an officer to inspect the proceedings of the Court Christian. And in case any clerk is convicted, or pleads guilty, he is to forfeit the privilege of his character, and to be protected by the church no longer.

IV. No archbishops, bishops, or parsons, are allowed to depart from the kingdom, without a licence from the crown; and provided they have leave to travel, they shall give security, not to act or solicit any thing during their passage, stay, or return, to the prejudice of the king or kingdom.

V. When any of the laity are prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts, the charge ought to be proved before the bishop by legal and reputable witnesses; and the course of the process is to be

these laws, which he deemed prejudicial to the CENT. XII. divine rights of the church in general, and to the

so managed that the archdeacon may not lose any part of his right, or the profits accruing to his office: and if any offenders seem to have been screened from prosecution upon the score either of favour or quality, the sheriff, at the bishop's instance, shall order twelve sufficient men of the neighbourhood to make oath before the bishop, that they will discover the truth according to the best of their knowlege.

VI. Excommunicated persons shall not be obliged to make oath, or give security to continue upon the place 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, nor any of their estates put under an interdict, before application be made to the king, provided he be in the kingdom; and if his highness be out of England, the justiciary must be acquainted with the dispute, in order to make satisfaction: and thus what belongs to the cognisance of the king's court, must be tried there; and that which belongs to the Court Christian, must be remitted to that jurisdiction.

VIII. In case of appeals in ecclesiastical causes, the first step is to be made from the archdeacon to the bishop, and from the bishop to the archbishop; and, if the archbishop fails to do justice, 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. When a difference happens to arise between any clergyman and layman concerning a tenement, and the clerk pretends that it is holden by frank Almoine*, and the layman pleads it a lay fee, the tenure shall be tried by the inquiry 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 seised of the thing in controversy, shall not be disseised during the suit (pendente lite), upon the ground of the verdict above-mentioned.

X. With regard to one who holds of the king in any city, castle, or borough, or resides upon any of the demesne lands of the crown, in case he is cited by the archdeacon or bishop to

* i. e. A tenure by divine service, as Britton explains it.

CENT. XII.

prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs in particular. Upon this there arose a violent debate between the

answer for any misbehaviour belonging to their cognisance; if he refuses to obey their summons, and to stand to 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 ecclesiastical persons, who hold of the king in chief, and by 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 trials in the king's court, till sentence is to be pronounced for the losing of life or limbs.

XII. When any archbishopric, bishopric, abbey, or priory, of royal foundation, become vacant, the king is to make seisure; 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 consult; at which time, the person elected shall, before his consecration, 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 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 disseise the king of any part of his lands, or trespass upon his prerogative, the archbishops, bishops, and deacons, shall call him to an account, and oblige him to make the crown restitution; i. e." They were to excommunicate such disseisers 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 church-yard, to secure them against seisure 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 debts, though particularly solemn in the circumstances of the contract, shall be tried in the king's courts.

.

resolute monarch and the rebellious prelate, which CENT. XII. obliged the latter to retire into France, where Alexander was at that time in a kind of exile. This pontiff and the king of France interposed their good offices in order to compose these differences, in which they succeeded so far, after much trouble and difficulty, as to encourage Becket to return to England, where he was re-instated in his forfeited dignity. But the generous and indulgent proceedings of his sovereign towards him, were not sufficient to subdue his arrogant and rebellious obstinacy in maintaining what he called the privileges of the church; nor could he be induced by any means to comply with the views and measures of Henry. The consequences of this inflexible resistance were fatal to the haughty prelate; for he was, soon after his return into England, assassinated before the altar while he was at vespers in his cathedral by four persons, who certainly did not commit this act of violence without the king's knowlege and connivance. This event produced warm debates between

XVI. The sons of copy-holders are not to be ordained without the consent of the lord of the manor where they were born.

Such were the articles of the constitutions of Clarendon, against the greatest part of which the pope protested. They were signed by the English clergy, and also by Becket. The latter, however, repented of what he had done, and retiring from court, suspended himself from his office in the church for about forty days, till he received absolution from Alexander, who was then at Sens. His aversion to these articles manifested itself by an open rebellion against his sovereign, in which he discovered his true character, as a most daring, turbulent, vindictive, and arrogant priest, whose ministry was solely employed in extending the despotic dominion of Rome, and whose fixed purpose was to aggrandize the church upon the ruins of the state. Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. xiith century. Rapin de Thoyras, in the reign of Henry II.

See

This assertion is in our opinion by much too strong. It can only be founded upon certain indiscrete and passionate expressions, which the intolerable insolence and phrenetic obstinacy of Becket drew from Henry in an unguarded moment, when, after having received new affronts, notwithstanding the reconciliation he had effected with so much trouble and con

CENT. XII. the king of England and the Roman pontiff, who gained his point so far as to make the suppliant monarch undergo a severe course of penance, in order to expiate a crime of which he was considered as the principal promoter, while the murdered prelate, in 1173, was solemnly enrolled in the highest rank of saints and martyrs".

descension, he expressed himself to this purpose: Am I not unhappy, that, among the numbers who are attached to my interests, and employed in my service, there is no one possessed of spirit enough to resent the affronts which I am constantly receiving from a miserable priest?' These words, indeed, were not pronounced in vain. Four gentlemen of the court, whose names were Fitz-Urse, Tracy, Brito, and Morville, murdered Becket in his chapel, and thus performed, in a licentious and criminal manner, an action which the laws might have commanded with justice. But it is extremely remarkable, that, after the murder, the assassins were afraid they had gone too far, and durst not return to the king's court, which was then in Normandy; but retired at first to Knaresborough in Yorkshire, which belonged to Morville, whence they repaired to Rome for absolution, and being admitted to penance by Alexander, were sent by that pontiff to Jerusalem, and passed the remainder of their lives upon the Black Mountain in the severest acts of austerity and mortification. All this does not look as if the king had been deliberately concerned in this murder, or had expressly consented to it. On the contrary, various circumstances concur to prove that Henry was entirely innocent of this murder. Mr. Hume mentions particularly one, which is worthy of notice. The king, suspecting the design of the four gentlemen abovementioned, by some menacing expressions they had dropped, "despatched (says Mr. Hume) a messenger after them, order"ing them to attempt nothing against the person of the primate. "But these orders came too late." See his History of England, vol. i. p. 294. Rapin Thoyras, Histoire d'Angleterre, Collier's Ecclesiastical History of England. The works to which Dr. Mosheim refers for an account of this matter, are as follow: Guiliel. Stephanidæ Historia Thomæ Cantuariensis apud Scriptores rerum Anglicarum, published in folio at London by Sparke, in the year 1723.-Christ. Lupi Epistolæ et Vita Thoma Cantuar.-Epistolæ Alexandri III. Ludovici VII. Henrici II. in hac causa, ex M. S. Vaticano, Bruxelles, 1682, 2 vol. 4to-Natalis Alexandri Select. Histor. Eccles. Capita, Sec. xii. Diss. x. p. 833.-Thomæ Stapletoni Tres Thomæ, seu res gesta Thomæ Apostoli, S. Thomæ Cantuariensis, et Thomæ Mori. Coloniæ, 1612, in 8vo.

u Boulay, Histor. Academ. Paris. tom. ii. p. 328, et de Die