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THE EVE OF BATTLE

245

rest of the barons' party at a conference in the following March.

Final efforts

for peace.

No other means of arbitrament now remained but war, and both sides prepared for it without delay. One final effort, however, for a peaceful settlement was made. Henry of Sandwich, Bishop of London, Walter de of the bishops Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, and Stephen of Burghstede, Bishop of Chichester, held a conference with Simon de Montfort and other leading patriots, at which it was resolved that 50,000 marks should be offered to the king on condition that the provisions of Oxford were reaffirmed and executed. When the barons had formed their camp at Fletching, nine miles north of Lewes, the Bishops of London and Worcester proceeded to Lewes, where the king lay, with this offer and a letter in which the barons declared that in taking up arms they wished no ill to the king, but were determined to oppose with all their might those aliens who were his enemies as well as theirs, and indeed enemies of the whole kingdom. They found the king in the Cluniac priory of Lewes. He had arrived on May 11, the eve of St. Pancras, to whom the priory was dedicated. True to his habits of

extortion, he had on the way wrung 500 marks out of the Cistercians of Robertsbridge, and made great inroads on the estates of Battle Abbey. He was indeed a strange guest for a house dedicated to St. Pancras, who was held to be the special avenger of all perjuries. False swearers who dared to approach his tomb at Rome were said to go mad, or fall dead on the spot. The perfidious Henry, however, spent two quiet days and nights in the priory. The saint reserved his vengeance for the day of battle.

army.

The offer and letter of the barons were received with the utmost scorn and contempt, and the bishops returned to Fletching with letters of haughty defiance from the Devout spirit king, his brother Richard, King of the Romans, and of the barons' his son, the Lord Edward. Convinced of the righteousness of their cause, the patriots prepared for battle in a spirit of religious devotion. The Bishop of Worcester spent a great part of the night in hearing confessions, and in encouraging all who should fight manfully in the cause of justice to hope for remission of sins. Earl Simon himself

spent much time in prayer. All the combatants had white crosses fastened on their backs and breasts, both as a help to distinguish each other in battle, and as a token of the purity and sanctity of their cause.

Lewes, 1264.

The battle of Lewes was fought on May 14. The parliament which met after the victory drew up the new constitution which was to be in force during the remainder of Battle of Henry's reign. He was to be guided by a permanent council of nine, who were to be nominated by three electors chosen by the barons. These three electors were Earl Simon, the Earl of Gloucester, and Stephen Burghstede, Bishop of Chichester. The opposition to the king had been throughout a movement on behalf of justice, righteousness, and freedom against oppression and faithlessness, and the Church had taken a leading part in it from first to last. The great principle established by the victory at Lewes, and thenceforth never forgotten in England, was the same for which Grosseteste had bravely and persistently contended against both king and pope, that law is above the ruler, and that the sovereign who does not rule in accordance with law and truth must be restrained. In the words of a long Latin poem, written by a nameless author soon after the battle of Lewes, "Let him who reads know that he cannot reign who does not keep the law. If the prince loves (his people) he ought to be loved in return; if he rules righteously he ought to be honoured; if he goes astray he ought to be called back by those whom he has oppressed; if he will be corrected by them he ought to be uplifted and supported. . . . Law rules the dignity of the king; for we believe that the law is light without which the ruler will wander from the right path.'

The important part played by the Church in this struggle for constitutional rights cannot be expressed better than in the words of Sir Francis Palgrave: "However powerful the nobles may have been, it is doubtful whether they would have been able to maintain themselves against the monarchy, if they had been deprived of the support of the abbots and bishops who were placed in the first rank as peers of the realm. The mitre has resisted many blows which would have broken the helmet. . . . It is to these prelates that we chiefly owe the maintenance of the form and the spirit of free

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BATTLE OF LEWES

247

government secured to us not by force but by law; and the altar has thus been the corner-stone of our ancient constitution.”

The victory at Lewes was indeed followed by the overthrow at Evesham, 1265, and the death of the great leader, Simon de Montfort. Yet the cause for which he and the patriotic party had fought was not lost. In the assembly which drew up the compact or "Dictum" of Kenilworth, 1266; in the Parliament of Marlborough, 1267, which embodied in statutes some of the most important reforms of the constitutional party; and in the Council of London, held by the papal legate, 1268; clergy and laity combined to restrain any excesses on the part of the victorious royalists. Edward himself, the victor at Evesham, learned to respect the principles for which Earl Simon fought and died, and to rule in conformity with them. He learned the lesson which his father was never able to learn -that the king's throne must be established in righteousness, by doing strict justice to all men, by giving to every class some voice in the great council of the nation, above all by scrupulous fidelity to promises, in accordance with the motto inscribed on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, "Pactum serva," "Keep troth.”

AUTHORITIES. · Annal. Monast. (Rolls series), ed. Luard, esp. Tewkesbury, Burton, and Winchester, and Chronicle of Thomas Wykes, Canon of Oseney. The first part of this Chronicle is based on the Ann. of Oseney, but from 1258 he writes independently, in the spirit of a moderate royalist. Royal Letters Henry III., ed. Shirley; Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. ed. 1259; Rishanger's Chronicle; Gervase of Cant. contin. (all in Rolls series). Political Songs, ed. Wright (Camden Society); Robert of Gloucester, ed. Hearne, For life of Grosseteste-his Letters, ed. Luard, and Monumenta Franciscana, vol. i. ed. Brewer; and Ann. of Lanercost, Ann. Monastici (all in Rolls series). Many more will be found in the Life of Robert Grosseteste, by Mr. Francis Seymour Stevenson, M. P. (Macmillan, 1899), a very thorough and scholarly work; Blaauw's Barons' War; Simon de Montfort, by Pauli; Battle of Lewes, by the present writer in Archeolog. Journal, vol. xii. p. 189; Rymer's Fœdera; Bp. Stubbs's Select Charters, Constit. History, ch. xiv., and Early Plantagenets.

Monasticism.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MONASTIC ORDERS

THE Course of Monasticism in England from the introduction of Christianity to the eve of the Norman Conquest has been clearly traced in the first volume of this history.1 Revival of It was shown that, although the conversion of the English was mainly effected by monks, yet the Benedictine rule was at no time very strictly observed, and that from various causes by the middle of the tenth century even the knowledge of it had been lost. This extinction, however, of Benedictinism was followed in the latter half of the same century by a revival, in which the principal leaders were the Archbishops of Canterbury, Oda, and Dunstan, and Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. These reformers introduced a new and aggressive type of Benedictinism from Fleury, seeking not only to reorganise existing monasteries, but to supplant secular clerks by monks wherever it was possible. In a few cathedral churches which were served by seculars attempts were made to subject the clerks to the rule of Chrodegang of Metz, by which they were obliged to use a common refectory and common dormitory, although they did not take monastic vows. None of these attempts, however,

had been very successful.

At the time of the Norman Conquest the cathedral churches of York, London, Exeter, Hereford, Rochester, Wells, Selsey, Lichfield, Dorchester, Thetford, and Sherborne were served by seculars. Winchester and Worcester were monastic: at Durham

1 For references see Index to vol. i. under "Benedict."

Lanfranc's

reforms.

the chapter consisted partly of seculars, partly of monks. Christchurch, Canterbury, was monastic in little else than name when Lanfranc became archbishop. The monastic dress was worn, but the rule was not observed, and hunting, hawking, and dice-playing were common forms of recreation. Lanfranc reformed the house with a firm but cautious hand, mindful of the Lord's saying that new wine must not be put into old bottles. He framed a minute set of regulations for its government, in the introduction to which he states that he had selected them from the usages of those monasteries which were held to be of the greatest authority. At the same time he did not desire to debar himself or his successors from making additions and alterations from time to time, since rigid adherence to a fixed rule was fatal to progress. Altered circumstances might require altered rules. Only certain main principles must be maintained intact,-faith, contempt of the world, charity, chastity, humility, patience, obedience, humble confession of sins, and penance for them, frequent prayers, and due silence. Wherever these essential principles were observed it might be truly said that the rule of the Blessed Benedict was kept. He increased the number of the brethren to 150, built cloisters, dormitory, refectory, and other offices, and placed the whole house under the rule of a prior.

Notwithstanding the laxity of rule in many of the English houses even after the revival of the tenth century, and the large number of churches which remained in the hands of secular clerks, the popular sentiment in England, as in Western Christendom generally, was strongly in favour of monasticism. The life of the monk in his seclusion from the world, his renunciation of marriage, and of all personal possessions, impressed the emotional minds of men in a simple childlike age as being the highest and purest form of Christianity. And as in England the earliest missionaries had been monks, so the most venerated names were those of monks,-Augustine, Wilfrith, Theodore, Bede, Dunstan.

If Lanfranc regarded the English monasteries as degenerate, William looked upon them as strongholds of national feeling; and while Lanfranc endeavoured to tighten discipline, William placed them under the rule of Norman abbots. The rules drawn up by Lanfranc for the government of