ness of the crown when the three Normandy, became the vassal of the pope, and perished in a struggle of despair against English freedom, was no weak and indolent voluptuary, but the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins." By the scourge of oppression in the hands of Powerlesssuch a master the English nation was aroused not only to a sense of its oneness, but to a sense of the utter weakness of opposed by the royal authority, even in the hands of the ablest and estates. craftiest of despots, when steadily opposed by a united people marshalled in the ranks of the three estates. The great lesson which the struggle for the Charter teaches is embodied in the fact that, while the royal authority which towered so high over the land was more than a match in a single-handed contest with any one order in the state, it became perfectly powerless in the presence of an offensive alliance between the three. As soon as the united nation was aroused to a realization of this fact, by the persistent warfare waged by John against the estates in detail, the royal authority was broken and the cause of the king was lost. over the ment of The constitutional struggle, which pauses for a moment with The great the winning of the Great Charter, actively begins with the fa- quarrel mous ecclesiastical quarrel which brought John into conflict appointnot only with the clergy of his own realm, but with the great- primate. est of all the popes, - Innocent III. The break between John and the clergy grew out of the death of Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, which took place in July, 1205. The right to fill the vacancy thus created in the primacy of the kingdom gave rise to an angry controversy between the monks of Christchurch, the bishops of the primatial province, and the king.2 The monks upon their part claimed the right to exercise all of the powers of the cathedral chapter of Canterbury; the bishops upon their part, while they conceded the right of capitular election, claimed that they should at least concur with the monks in the choice of the metropolitan ; the king upon his part claimed that no valid election could be made by either or both without the royal license. As soon as the death of Hubert was known, the junior part of the 1 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. i. pp. 229, 230. 2 For a general statement of the controversy, see M. Paris, vol. ii. pp. 104-107, vol. iii. p. 222, R. S. I know of no modern historian who has stated Innocent. monks1 met clandestinely at night, and without the royal license, and without the concurrence of the suffragan bishops of the province, elected Reginald, their sub-prior, to the metropolitan office. In the hope of sustaining this rash and irregular proceeding, Reginald was dispatched to Rome to seek the confirmation of the apostolic see. After his departure the wiser part of the brotherhood resolved to ignore what had been done, and, having obtained the royal license, proceded to hold an open and regular election. At the king's dictation the chapter elected John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, who was at once put into possession of the archbishopric, and a delegation of twelve monks was sent to Rome to Decision of support his title. After a year's delay Innocent first decided. the dispute between the suffragan bishops and the monks in favor of the exclusive claim of the latter.2 This question being removed from the controversy, the pope proceeded to pass upon the validity of the two elections which the monks themselves had made, and, to the disappointment of both parties, quashed them both. The election of Reginald was annulled upon the ground that it was uncanonical; that of John de Gray, upon the ground that it was improperly held while the validity of the first election was a pending question. These judgments of Innocent, which seem to have been in accordance with the jurisprudence of the age, were followed by the assertion of a papal claim of a startling character. The primatial see being vacant, and the representatives of the chapter having the right to fill the vacancy being present in Rome with authority to enter into a new election, the pope proceeded to end the controversy by assuming to himself the royal right of nomination. In the exercise of this assumption, which was contrary to all English precedent,* 1 "Several of the cathedral churches had been originally settled in monasteries, and still continued to be served by monks, who claimed and exercised all the rights of the chapters."- Lingard, vol. ii. p. 41. 2" Post multas tandem hinc inde disceptationes, tandem a domino papa pronunciata est pro monachorum parte contra episcopos sententia diffinitiva." M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 107. 8 Ibid., p. III. "Hitherto the pope had done no more than reject unfit candidates or determine the validity of elections; now he himself proposed a candidate, pushed him through the process of election, and confirmed the promotion, although the royal assent was withheld."- Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 305. The pope promised that, if John would acquiesce, the appointment should not be converted into a prece dent injurious to the English crown. See Lingard, vol. ii. p. 43. Innocent commanded the monks to elect in his presence He claimed the right of Stephen Langton, an English scholar of eminence, who had nominabeen raised to the rank of cardinal, and who was then present tion. at the papal court. Without conceding to John even the right to confirm the election, the archbishop-elect was consecrated by the pope himself at Viterbo in June, 1207. the me As the theories and relations of medieval times cannot be Theory of measured by the standards of to-day, it is impossible to diaeval emunderstand the changing phases of the bitter and prolonged pire. conflict which ensued between Innocent and John without some insight into that shadowy yet supreme overlordship which the Roman pontiffs then claimed and exercised over all the princes of the Christian world. The theory of the medieval empire rested upon the magnificent notion of a vast Christian monarchy whose sway was absolutely universal.1 The chiefs of this comprehensive society were the Roman emperor and the Roman pontiff, -the one standing at its head in its temporal character as an empire, the other standing at its head in its spiritual character as a church. The theory was that each chief in his own sphere ruled by divine right as the direct vicegerent of God, and that each possessed the hearty sympathy and support of the other. The Roman Empire Roman em and the Catholic Church were, according to mediaval ideas, Catholic pire and two aspects of a single Christian monarchy whose mission it Church two was to shelter beneath its wings all the nations of the earth. single Although this magnificent theory was never fully carried out, monarchy. although the universal monarchy never extended its dominion over all mankind, or even over the whole of Christendom, yet the fact remains that the ideal empire did for ages so far Continuous influence the thoughts and actions of men that it is impos- Roman em sible to understand the history of medieval Europe if we fail pire the key to grasp the theory of its existence. No part of the system val history. was less faithfully carried out in practice than the requirement that the pope and the emperor should exercise their concurrent sway without conflict of jurisdiction. It could hardly have been otherwise, for the reason that the very 1 The outline here given of the theory of the medieval empire is drawn in the main from the famous work of Mr. James Bryce, entitled The Holy Roman Empire, published at Oxford in 1864; and from the brilliant review aspects of a Christian. existence of to media structure of the dual fabric necessarily provoked a struggle for supremacy between the temporal and the spiritual power. When this struggle grew into overshadowing prominence during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, while the disputants admitted that the papacy and the empire were both ordained of God, and that each in its own sphere had universal jurisdiction, they failed to agree upon the relations of the two jurisdictions to each other. Whether the supreme temporal ruler, who was admitted into his high office through consecration at the hands of the spiritual chief of Christendom, was in the last resort subordinate to the latter as the lesser to the greater light, or whether their dignities were coördinate and coequal, were the questions over which was fought the great battle between pope and emperor in the days of the world's wonder, Frederick II. The contention which Frederick left unconcluded was continued in the next age by two Dante and famous disputants. Saint Thomas of Aquin, in his treatise, Saint "Of the Government of Princes,"2 defended the supremacy disputants. of the papacy on the one hand; while Dante, in his treatise "De Monarchia," maintained the independence of the empire on the other.3 Thomas as Mediæval claim of papal supremacy as restated Manning. The medieval claim of papal supremacy has thus been restated in our own time by a great English cardinal: "The supreme civil power of Christendom was dependent on the by Cardinal supreme spiritual authority. The pontiffs created the Empire of the West: they conferred the imperial dignity by consecration; they were the ultimate judges of the emperor's acts, with power of deprivation and deposition." This su premacy, which the pope claimed not only over the emperor but over all other Christian princes, taking its color from the prevailing jurisprudence, naturally and necessarily assumed a feudal shape. The theory was that all Christian princes stood to the Roman pontiff as great vassals to a supreme lord or suzerain, and as such supreme lord the pope claimed the right The papal supremacy naturally assumed a feudal shape. to enforce the duties due to him from his feudal subordinates 1 See Pollock's Hist. of the Science of Politics, p. 14 (Humboldt Library). 2 As to the authorship of the De Regimine Principum, see Réformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe, Paris, 1864. 3 Dante, however, puts Frederick among the unbelievers in the Inferno, Canto xiii. 60-68: "I it was who held Both keys to Frederick's heart, and turned the wards." 4 See a monograph by Cardinal Manning entitled The Pope and Magna Carta, lately published in England, and reprinted in Baltimore in 1885. through an ascending scale of penalties which culminated at last in the absolution of the subject from the bonds of allegiance, and in the deposition of the sovereign himself. Such were the claims of the papal power, and such its resources, when John entered the lists against Innocent III. fused to mate. With the consecration of Langton the trial of strength be- John retween the pope and the king openly began. John at once de- receive the clared that Stephen should never set foot in England in his new pricharacter as primate, while the monks who had taken part in his election were made the special objects of the royal vengeance. They were despoiled of their lands and driven across the sea. In vain did Innocent attempt to appease the wrath of John by the promise that, if he would acquiesce in what had been done and receive the primate, the election itself should not be converted into a precedent injurious to the prerogatives of the English king. When John refused to listen to such proposals Innocent threatened to lay the whole land under interdict 2 if Langton were longer kept out of his see. John responded with a counter threat that, in the event of an interdict, he would banish the clergy, and mutilate every Italian he could find in the realm. Thus defied, Innocent proceeded to compel his contumacious vassal to obedience by applying to his kingdom the coercive machinery incident to his supreme spiritual authority. On the day appointed, March The inter23, 1208, the interdict which had been threatened fell upon 231208. the land. The churches were closed; the church bells were silent; the administration of the sacraments, save to the newborn and the dying, were suspended; the dead were silently buried in unconsecrated ground. In the midst of the general gloom John, who mocked at the pope's resentment, vented his wrath upon the clergy by banishing the bishops who proclaimed the interdict, by confiscating the estates of those who observed it, and by subjecting them to the jurisdiction of the king's courts in spite of their privileges. Thus ended in an- John breaks ger that long alliance between the king and the clergy which William and Lanfranc had built up, and which the quarrels of 1 M. Paris, vol. ii. pp. 112, 113; vol. iii. p. 223: 2 The bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester were commanded by the pope to make the threat.— M. Paris, 8 Ibid., pp. 115, 116. 4 Cf. Green, Hist. of Eng. People, vol. i. p. 232. dict, March with the clergy. |