DIOCESAN AND PAROCHIAL ORGANIZATION.
The English Conversion forms a remarkable chapter in the general history of Christian missions; the piety, simplicity, zeal, and unselfishness of the missionaries are beyond praise; not less remarkable is the earnestness with which the English embraced the new faith and the civilization which came together with it. The fact bears witness to the intellectual and moral qualities of the people that in the very first generation of converts there were men of learning and character like Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop, like the pupils of Hilda of Whitby, like Ithamar and Deusdedit in Kent, worthy of taking place among the bishops and abbots of their time.
The royal and noble ladies who played so important a part, in the influence they exercised in affairs, or in the foundation and rule of religious houses which trained bishops and priests, present a spectacle,almost unparalleled in history, of which their descendants may well be proud.
The English kings and nobles put themselves frankly under the guidance of their teachers not only in religion and literature, but in the arts of civilization. The three codes of law which have remained to us—the first written laws of the English race—carry proof on the face of them that they were compiled under the influence of the Christian teachers. The princes sought their counsel in the Witenagemot, and put them beside the secular judges in the administration of justice at the hundred and folk motes. “In a single century England became known to Christendom as a fountain of light, as a land of learned men, of devout and unwearied missions, of strong, rich, and pious kings.”[30]
By the third quarter of the seventh century the first fervour of the English conversion had cooled down, and circumstances produced a kind of crisis. One of those plagues which at intervals ravaged mediæval Europe—it was called the Yellow Pest—during the summer of 664 swept over England from south to north. Earconbert, King of Kent, and Deusdedit, the first native bishop of the Kentish men, died on the same day; Damian, Bishop of Rochester, probably died a little before his brother of Canterbury. In the north, Tuda, recently appointed Bishop of Northumbria, died, and Cedd, Bishop of the East Saxons, then staying at his monastery of Lastingham. The half of the East Saxons who were under the ruleof the sub-king Sighere, thinking the pest a result of the anger of the ancient gods, apostatized from the faith. The differences between the two “schools of thought,” the Continental in the south of the country, and the Scotic in the north, were causing friction and inconvenience, so much so that the bishops elect of the Continental school hesitated to receive consecration from the bishops of the Celtic school; Wilfrid of York had at this very time gone to seek consecration from the Frankish bishops. In this crisis, Oswy, King of Northumbria, agreed with Egbert, who succeeded Earconbert in Kent, to send a priest acceptable to both schools to Rome, to study things in that centre of Western Christendom, to get consecration from the Bishop of Rome, and then to return and reduce the ecclesiastical affairs of England to a common order. Wighard, a Kentish priest, sent in pursuance of this wise plan, died in Rome; and, to save time, at the request of the English Churches, Vitalian, the Bishop of Rome, selected Theodore of Tarsus, a learned priest of the Greek Church, consecrated him, and sent him to be archbishop of the English.
With Theodore (668-690) begins a new chapter in our history. His antecedents, as a member of the Eastern Church, eminently qualified him to look impartially upon the two schools, the Italian and the Scotic, into which the religious world of England was divided, and to address himself with broad views of ecclesiastical polity to the task of organizing the Heptarchic Churches into a harmonious province of the Catholic Church.
In 673, at the instance of Theodore, and under the presidency of Hlothere, King of Kent, a synod was held at Hertford, attended by all the English bishops but one, and by the kings and many of the principal nobles and clergy, at which the independent national Churches agreed to unite in an Ecclesiastical Province, with the Bishop of Canterbury as its metropolitan; it was further agreed that the bishops and clergy should meet in synod twice a year, once always in August at Clovesho, the other was probably left to the convenience of the moment as to time and place, but was usually held at Cealchyth. Augustine and his successors at Canterbury had never been practically more than bishops of the Kentish men, with the titular distinction of archbishop which Gregory gave them. Theodore, says Bede, was the first archbishop whom the Churches of the English obeyed. This gave Theodore the authority necessary for the carrying out of his plans for the peace and progress of the Church.
One feature of Theodore’s policy was the breaking up of some of the larger sees. This was not done without opposition. There was much to be said in favour of the idea of “one king one bishop;” it fell in with the political organization and it had the prestige of ancient use. But Theodore, looking at the subject from his point of view, as the ruler of an ecclesiastical province, saw the desirableness of breaking it up into dioceses of more manageable size. He was opposed by Wilfrid of York, who resented the diminution of his great position as Bishop of the Northumbriankingdom, by the division of the diocese into four, York, Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Whithern; but his opposition was overborne by the firmness of the King of Northumbria and the archbishop. Wilfrid carried his complaint to Rome, which is the first example of an appeal from the English to the Roman Court, and raises the question of the relations of the English Church to the Bishop of Rome. It is sufficient to say here in reference to the Roman decision in Wilfrid’s favour on this and subsequent occasions, that neither Archbishop Theodore, nor the clergy, nor the king and thanes of the Witan, showed any disposition to accept the intervention of the Bishop of Rome, or to defer to his judgment in the matter; and that Wilfrid was punished by the king with imprisonment and exile for his contumacy.
The Bishop of Mercia, backed by the king, resisted the subdivision of that vast diocese; and it was not until after Theodore’s death that his plan was carried into effect of dividing it into four, Lichfield, Hereford, Worcester, Leicester, with Sidnacester for Lindsey, recently reconquered from Northumbria. It was not till 705 that the great diocese of Wessex was divided into two, Winchester and Sherburn, and further subdivided in the time of Alfred the Great by the erection of sees for Somerset, Wilts, and Devon. A new English see in Cornwall, on its conquest by Athelstan, completed the list of Saxon bishoprics.
The annual meeting of the Churches in synods was a very important consequence of their organization into a province. Kings and their councillorsand great thanes came to the synods, as well as bishops and clergy. It is probable that the laymen had no formal voice in the ecclesiastical legislation, but their attestation and assent would add to the authority of the acts of the councils in the estimation of the people. The general synods would promote the regular holding of diocesan synods.[31]One direct result of these frequent assemblies would be to give a stimulus to the work of the Church all over the land. Another incidental result would be to afford a stable centre of affairs, and to promote the growth of a sentiment of nationality. Political affairs were in a state of great disturbance. In some of the kingdoms rival pretenders waged civil war, and now one, now another won the throne, while the bishop maintained his position undisturbed. Nations warred against one another, now Mercia reduced other kingdoms to dependence, and again Wessex asserted a supremacy over others; but the synods continued to unite the bishops and clergy of the kingdoms south of the Thames in frequent consultation for the common good.
Theodore’s idea in setting himself to divide the national bishoprics was to multiply episcopal centres of orderly Church life, adequate to the needs of the Christian flock. The settling of priests among the scattered people to take pastoral charge of themwas a natural sequel to the former movement. The practical way of effecting it was to induce the landowners to accept and make provision for a resident priest who should have the pastoral care of their households and people.
It is not historically true that Theodore invented this idea of parochial organization, because it already existed in countries where the church had been longer established. Rome was virtually divided into forty parishes before the end of the third century. The system of appointing a priest to take charge of all the souls within a definite district existed in the city of Alexandria in the time of Athanasius, and in some country districts of Asia Minor at a very early period; it was a natural outcome of the Christian idea of the pastoral office of the ministry. The Emperor Justinian[32]had encouraged the system, by a law of 541, which decreed that a man who should build an oratory and furnish a competent livelihood for a priest, might present a clerk thereto, by himself and his heirs, and the bishop finding him worthy should ordain him. To come nearer home, a Synod of Orleans, inA.D.541, ordained that, if any one desired to have a “diocese” on his estate, he should first allot sufficient lands for the maintenance of the church and of the clerks who should fulfil their offices there.[33]In Italy parishes were beginning to be founded in the time of Gregory the Great. From one of his letters it appears that Anio “Comes Castri Aprutiensis,” having built a churchin his castellum, wished to have it consecrated;[34]and the Bishop of Fermo had referred to Gregory on the question. He allows it to be done on condition that the count shall provide a proper endowment for a resident priest. His business-like statement of what the endowment is to consist of, gives a kind of standard of what, in the circumstances of that time and in the judgment of a wise and practical bishop, was a proper endowment of a country parish. It was to consist of a farm with its homestead and a bed, a yoke of oxen, two cows, and fifteen head of sheep, and the proper implements of a farm, and four pounds of silver as the working capital. In another letter Gregory bids Felix, Bishop of Messina, to consecrate a church built by Subdeacon Januarus in the city, on the condition that it be properly endowed; and in this case he expressly denies the founder any rights (e.g.of patronage), except admission to Divine service.
The canons of the Council of Toledo, a little earlier than this, and a capitulary in 823 of Charlemagne,[35]a little later, show that it was about this period that country parishes, with their separate endowments and legal rights, were being founded throughout Europe.[36]Theodore knew what had been done in the East, and he is said to have encouraged the great landowners to adopt the system here. We may accept it as highly probable that we owe to Theodore the diocesan and parochial organization of the Church of England, which provides a pastor to look after every soul in his own home, as against the previous system of monastic centres from which missionaries went forth for occasional ministrations, and to which the people resorted in their spiritual needs.
The kings would be likely to set the example. They were accustomed to divide their time among their principal estates. Aidan’s head-quarters were at Lindisfarne, but he had also a church and chamber at Bamborough, the chief residence of the Northumbrian kings; and, if we rightly understand Bede’s words,[37]he had a church and chamber at other of the principal houses, where the king and his court used to live for months together. It would be natural that the king should provide for the permanent residence of a priest to serve each of these royal chapels, for the well-being of the people on the several royal estates; and the subsequent history of royal free chapels confirms the conjecture that he did so. The great landowners would be among the first to follow the king’s example; and we find some evidence of it in an incidental notice by Bede[38]of the consecration by St. John of Beverley (705-718), then Bishop of Hexham, of a church at South Burton, in Yorkshire, for the Ealdorman Puch, and another at NorthBurton, in the same county, for Addi the Ealdorman. What Puch and Addi were doing on their estates, probably others of the great Thanes were also doing, though no marvel occurred at the consecration of these other churches to lead the historian to mention them.
House of a Saxon nobleman. The hall in the middle, the church on the right hand.The nobleman and his wife are distributing alms to the poor. From Harl. MS. 603.
Not only kings and nobles, but the bishops themselves, and the great monasteries with outlying estates, would naturally make provision for the religious interests of the people dependent upon them. In the south we gather from the canons of Clovesho, in 747, that the collegiate and conventual bodies had erected churches on their outlying estates, and that the lands of the lay proprietors had been divided into districts by the bishops, and committed to the care of resident priests.
A letter written by Bede, the most learned and most revered Churchman of the time, to Egbert, on his consecration to the See of York, is a very valuable piece of evidence as to the condition of the Church in the north at that point of time (734). We learn first that the discipline of the monasteries had become lax. Many reeves had obtained land under pretext of founding a monastery, and under that pretext claimed freedom for their land from state burdens, and called themselves abbots, but were living with their wives and families, and servants, very much like other lay folk, and handing down their abbeys as hereditary fees. He says that there are towns and hamlets in the most inaccessible places which are taxed for the support of a bishop—an early notice of the general payment of tithe—but never see one, and are moreoverwithout any resident teacher or minister—which implies that towns and hamlets in more accessible places have a resident minister, and are visited by a bishop for confirmation. The venerable old man gives advice to the youthful prelate for the mitigation of the evils which he points out. He advises him to obtain the fulfilment of the original plan of Gregory the Great, viz. the formation of the churches north of the Humber into a northern province, with York as the metropolitan see, and to obtain the king’s leave to subdivide the northern dioceses to the number of twelve in all, using some of the monasteries of whose decadence he complains for the new episcopal sees; he exhorts him to ordain more priests to preach and administer the sacraments in every village; and, lastly, he suggests the translation of the Creed and Our Father out of Latin into English for the instruction of the people.
Egbert followed Bede’s advice so far as to obtain his recognition as archbishop of the second province which embraced the country north of the Humber, with York as its metropolitan see; but he did not procure the subdivision of the existing dioceses. He did, however, accomplish a great work by raising the schools of York to such an eminence in learning and religion that they were famous throughout Europe. The schools of Wessex, under Aldhelm, rivalled those of Northumbria; the clergy generally could hardly fail to be influenced by the spirit of these great centres.
Meantime churches were being built, and rectorsof them settled upon the estates of the landowners. The seventh canon of Graetley, 928, in the reign of Athelstan, dealing with the question of penance for perjury, directs that the parish priest,sacerdos loci illius, is to certify the bishop as to the penitent’s behaviour; which implies that local priests were sufficiently widely scattered to keep in view every member of the small population.
The Parish Priest was not merely one who ministered in spiritual things to those who chose to accept his ministrations, he had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a definite territory and over all who dwelt within it. Just as the jurisdiction of the heptarchic bishops extended over the kingdoms, so in the parish the jurisdiction of the priest was conterminous with the estate of the lord or thane who invited the priest to minister to himself and his people.
Some of these estates were very extensive, comprising vast tracts of forest and waste around the cultivated land, and therefore some of the parishes were of great extent. Probably the parish priest, in addition to his work in the principal village, would also partially adopt the old system of itinerant mission work by visiting remote hamlets within his jurisdiction at certain times for the preaching of the Word and celebration of Divine worship. It is certain that at a very early period in the history of parishes the rector was assisted by chaplains in the maintenance of the frequent services of the mother church and in the visitation of the people.
Thus there gradually arose another class of Churches. As population increased and forest was assarted and waste brought into cultivation, new centres of population grew up at a distance from the original village. The Saxon laws encouraged the enterprise of the people by assigning to them a higher rank in proportion to their possessions,[39]which involved not only social dignity but also legal privileges; a law of Athelstan enacted that “if a ‘ceorl’ throve so that he had fully four hides of his own land, church and kitchen, ‘bur geat settl,’ and special service in the king’s hall (‘sunder note’ or ‘sundor note’) then was he thenceforth of thane-right worthy.”[40]
It is in the nature of things that many of these successful ceorls would be energetic and enterprising men who had looked out a tract of good soil in some neighbouring dale or amidst the surrounding waste, and brought it under cultivation, and created what was virtually a new township. The occasional visits of the parish priest or his chaplain would hardly satisfy the inhabitants of the new settlement for long. The new proprietor, in imitation of his betters, would be ambitious of having a church on his ground, and the law of Athelstan encouraged his laudable ambition. But the customary jurisdiction andrevenues of the mother Church extending over the whole district were jealously guarded against encroachment on the part of these new foundations. A “canon of Edgar” enacts (1) that tithe be paid to the Old Minster to which the district belongs; (2) if a thane has on his boc-land a church at which there is not a burial-place, then of the nine parts let him give to his priest what he will; and let every church scot and plough-alms go to the Old Minster. A later law of King Canute enacts that if a thane has erected on his own boc-land (freehold or charter land) a church having a legerstowe—a burial-place—he may subtract one-third part of his tithes from the mother Church, and bestow them upon his own clerk.[41]
Saxon Church of timber, at Greenstead, Essex.
A law of Canute incidentally describes four different classes of churches which, “though divinely they have like consecration,” hold a different rank and have adifferent penalty attached to the violation of their right of sanctuary. The classes are called: (1) the heafod mynster, chief minster; (2) the medemra mynster, translatedecclesia mediocris; (3) the læssa mynster, translatedecclesia minor; (4) the feld-cirice, literally field-church, where there was no burial-place. These are probably (1) cathedral or mother churches; (2) churches of ancient date with wide jurisdiction; (3) smaller parish churches; (4) district or mission chapels.
West end of Greenstead Church, Essex.
The continual increase of the population and the consequent bringing of more land into cultivation, and the gathering of this population upon the newly cultivated lands, caused the constant growth of new lordships or townships, or, in later times, manors, and the constant building of new churches to supply their spiritual wants. The jurisdiction and rights of the mother Church had to be dealt with in all these cases; but in many cases, by agreement with the mother Church, or by the assumption of a lord of the land too powerful for its priest to withstand, or by long usage, many of these new churches acquired the status of independent parishes; and at length, in the time of Edward the Confessor, the legal status ofparish churches was given to all which by ancient custom had the right of administration of baptism, marriage, and burial.
The Domesday Survey gives, so far as it deals with the matter, a view of the condition of the Church and clergy at the close of the Saxon period—tempore regis Edwardi. It is to be borne in mind that its object was not to make a complete terrier and census of the kingdom, but to ascertain the rights and revenues due to the Crown. The commissioners who made the survey in the different counties took somewhat different lines in making their returns, particularly in those details which are of special interest in the present inquiry. In most of the counties churches and clergy seem to be named only where they were liable to some payment to the Crown. In some counties all the churches seem to be named; in others all the presbyters; in others there is no mention of one or the other. Thus, in Lincolnshire 222 churches are named, in Norfolk 243, in Suffolk, 364; in Leicestershire 41 presbyters, in Rochester diocese about 65,[42]in Sussex 42, of which seven are described asecclesiolæchapels. In the returns for the counties of Cambridge, Middlesex, Lancaster, and Cornwall, neither church nor presbyter occurs. In the whole there are only 1700 churches named. But there seems no reason why Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk should have had a larger proportion of churches to population at that time than the other counties; and if the other counties wereproportionately subdivided into parishes and equipped with churches, we arrive at the conclusion that there were nearly as many churches (including chapels) and clergy before the Norman Conquest, when the population was about two millions, as there were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the population had increased to nearly nine millions.
Saxon tower, Sompting Church, Sussex.
From the same source we learn that the usual quantity of land assigned to a church was from five to fifty acres; in some cases the glebe was larger. Bosham, in Sussex, was one of the largest; in the time of Edward the Confessor it had 112 hides. Barsham,in Norfolk, had 100 acres; Berchingas, in Suffolk, 83; Wellingrove, in Lincolnshire, 129 acres of meadow and 14 of other land.
The private origin of ecclesiastical benefices, together with the feudal ideas of the tenure of property, produced in the minds of the owners of advowsons a certain sense of property in the benefices which shows itself in various ways: in the bargaining with the presentee for some advantage to the lord, as a present, or a pension, or the tenancy of part of the land.
The advowson descended with the manor, and was often subdivided among the heirs.[43]In later times we not infrequently find a rectory held in medieties, but in Domesday Book we find a benefice divided into any number of fractions up to one-twelfth.[44]
THE SAXON CLERGY.
The sources from which we obtain the fullest details of the religious life of the Saxon priests and people are the laws of their kings and the canons of their synods; and perhaps the most convenient way of presenting the information which these contain will be partly to give a series of quotations from them in chronological order, with such explanations as may seem necessary; partly to group them according to their subject; using one method or the other as may seem best to serve our purpose.
Of the earlier part of the period three codes of law have come down to us—that of Ethelbert of Kent, between 597 and 604; of Ine King of the West Saxons, probably 690; and of Wihtred of Kent, 696. We must bear in mind that the bishops and chief clergy of the kingdom were present at the Witan of the Saxon kings, as well as the chiefs and wise men; and that the kings and chief laymen wereoften present at the ecclesiastical synods; so that both laws and canons express the mind of the whole people.
The laws of Ethelbert are the earliest written code of the English race. They begin with the enactment, “If the property of God (i.e.of the Church) be stolen, twelve-fold compensation shall be made; for a bishop’s property, eleven-fold; a priest’s, nine-fold; a deacon’s, six-fold; a clerk’s, three-fold; church frith, two-fold; minster frith, two-fold.” A law of Earconbert of Kent (640) commanded the destruction of the temples and idols in that kingdom.
The laws of Ine, King of the West Saxons (688-725), are said in the preamble to be made “by the consent and advice of Ceadwalla, his father, and of Heddi, his bishop, and of Earconwald, his bishop, and with all his ealdormen, and the distinguished Witan of his people, and also with a large assembly of God’s servants (the clergy).” The first of his laws is (1) that God’s servants rightly hold their lawful rule. Then it goes on to enact (2) that children be baptized within thirty days, under a penalty of 30s., and if one die unbaptized the father shall make bôt[45]for it with all that he has. Then come enactments (3, 4, 5), against doing any work on the Sunday, on the payments to be made to the clergy, and on the privilege of sanctuary, which will be more conveniently grouped with similar enactments later on; (6) if a man fight in a king’s house he shall forfeit all his property; if in a minster, he shall makebôt of 120s.; (7) if a man before a bishop belie his testimony he shall forfeit 120s.; (61) church scot shall be paid according to where a man’s roof and hearth are at midwinter; (76) inflicts a special fine for slaying a godson or godfather—if it be a bishop’s son,[46]it is to be half the amount.
The preamble to the laws of Wihtred of Kent, in 696, states that they were made at “a deliberative convention of the great men,” the Archbishop Birhtwald and Bishop Gebmund of Rochester being present, “and every degree of the Church of that province spoke in unison with the obedient people.” The first law (1) gives the Church freedom in jurisdiction and revenue; (6) a priest guilty of misconduct or negligence to be suspended till the doom of the bishop; (9, 10, 11) on the observance of Sunday, are the same as in the laws of King Ine, quoted p. 79; (12, 13) seek to suppress the old heathenism by imposing on a man forfeiture of all his substance for making offerings to devils, and the same on his wife if she shared in his offence; a theowe for the same offence is to forfeit 6s.or “pay with his skin;”[47](14, 15) impose penalties for not abstaining from flesh onfasting days; (16, 17) relate to the value of the oaths of various classes of people, and are dealt with at p. 77. One of the most important laws of Wihtred is that which is called “the privilege of Wihtred,” given at a Witan held at Bapchild, attended by the king and nobles, as well as by the two bishops and clergy, which released the lands of monasteries from gabel or land-tax, and obliged the tenants only to attend the king in war and to pay burgh bôt and brig bôt,i.e.payments levied for the repair of town-walls and bridges. This privilege was confirmed in the first year of King Ethelbald of Mercia at the Council of Clovesho (716). It was granted by other Saxon kings also in their charters.
The decrees of a council at Clovesho, in 747, require a few words of preface. In 745 Boniface, “the Apostle of Germany,” had presided at a synod of Frank bishops, at Augsburg,[48]which had made canons for the reform of abuses, and had formally accepted the supremacy of Rome. Boniface sent a copy of these canons to his friend Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, clearly wishing him to take like measures.
The first canon of this Synod enacted that metropolitans should be obliged to apply to Rome for their pall, and obey the orders of St. Peter in everything according to the canons. Another canon to the same end decreed that if the people refuse to submitto the discipline of the Church, the bishops shall appeal to the archbishop of the province, and the archbishop to the Pope.
Two years afterwards Zacharias, Bishop of Rome, sent letters by the hands of two legates “to the English inhabitants of Britain,” in which he admonishes them to reform their lives, and holds out threats of excommunication against those who neglect to do so.[49]
The Pope’s action was clearly intended to induce the English Church to imitate the submission of the Frankish Church. A synod was assembled at Clovesho,A.D.747, attended by twelve English bishops of the dioceses south of the Humber and a number of their clergy, and by Ethelbald, King of the Mercians, who was over lord of all the English kingdoms south of the Humber. The Pope’s letter was read in Latin and English, and then the synod proceeded to draw up a number of canons.
A Saxon bishop and priest.(From Cotton MS., Claudius, B. iv.)
The omissions, compared with the canons of the German Council, are the most important part of the document. The first canon decreed that every bishop should be careful to support his character (i.e.his status as a bishop), execute every part of his office, and maintain the canons and constitutions of the Church against encroachment; and the second thatthe bishops and clergy should be careful to keep a good correspondence with each other, without any flattering applications to any person, considering that they are the servants of one master, and entrusted with the same commission; and, therefore, though they are divided by distance of place and country, they ought to be united by affection and pray for each other that every one may discharge his office with integrity and conscience. Then there follow disciplinary canons: (3) that the clergy should call together the people of all ranks and degrees in each place, preach to them the word of God,and forbid them to follow the heathen customs; (2) that the bishops should visit their dioceses every year; (4, 5, and 7) relate to monasteries; (6) bishops not to ordain priests without examination as to learning and morals; (8) priests to abstract themselves from worldly affairs and give themselves to reading, prayer, etc.; (9) to preach, baptize, and inspect the morals of the people in those precincts and districts assigned to them by their bishops—which implies the existence of subdivisions of dioceses into various jurisdictions, and the existence of parishes; (10) priests to be thoroughly acquainted with the doctrines and services of the church, to teach the Creed and Lord’s Prayer, and explain the sacraments; (11) to be uniform in their preaching and ministration; (12) regulates church music and ceremonies, canons not to intrude upon things which belong to the bishop; (13, 14, 15, 16, 18) on the observance of Sundays, holy days, the seven hours of prayer, rogations, and ember days; (17) appoints that the days on which St. Gregory and St. Augustine died shall be kept as holy days, and their names be included in the litanies.
Canons (21) and (22) enjoin on the clergy sobriety and propriety of conduct, and ever-fitness for celebration and reception of Holy Communion. (26) enjoins the bishops to convene their clergy and abbots, and communicate to them the decisions of the council, and command their observance; and if there is any disorder too strong for the bishop’s correction, he is to report it to the archbishop at the next meetingof the synod—but not a word of a reference beyond him to the Pope. (27) is on the singing of the psalms with recollection and pious dispositions and posture of respect, and of prayers—and among them of prayers for the departed;[50]and those who do not understand Latin are to pray in the vulgar tongue.
(26) and (27) are specially notable as directed against what seem to have been growing errors; they explain that alms are not to be given to commute penance and dispense with the discipline of the Church, and so procure a liberty of sinning; that those who think that God can be bribed thus, make their alms useless to them, and add to their guilt. Also that it is folly and presumption to think that a man condemned to penance may procure others to fast, say psalms, and distribute charity on his behalf; that if a man may thus buy his punishment and get others to repent for him, a rich man would be sure of salvation, and only the poor be in danger. The last canon enjoins that kings and princes and the whole body of the people be publicly prayed for in church.[51]
It is to be observed that the Northumbrian kingwas not present with his nobles and bishops at this synod; for eleven years previously (in 736) the Bishop of York had obtained the dignity of an archbishop with the Northumbrian churches as his province. The Papal legates visited the north, but we have no account of their doings there.
The laws of King Alfred are prefaced by a recapitulation of the early history of the Church, and recite the decree of the apostles at the Synod of Jerusalem. Then the king goes on to say that many synods were assembled in the old times, among the English race, after they had received the Faith of Christ, and ordained a “tort” for many misdeeds. Out of those laws which he had met with, either of the days of Ine his kinsman, of Offa, King of the Mercians, or of Ethelbryht who first among the English race received baptism, the things which seemed to him most right he had gathered together and rejected others. He had then showed them to the witan, and they declared that it seemed good to them all that they should be observed. We conclude that the codes of Ethelbert, Ine, and Offa (which last has not come down to us) were the principal codes then known. We select several of the laws of Alfred which deal with new matter.
1. If a man pledge himself and break his pledge, he is to surrender his weapons and goods to the keeping of his friends, and be in prison forty days in a bishop’s town, and suffer there whatever the bishop may prescribe; his friends to find him food;if he have none, then the king’s reeve to do it; if he escape, to be excommunicated of all Christ’s churches. If a man seek a church and confess an offence not before known, let it be half forgiven—i.e.let him pay half the penalty.
One of the laws agreed upon between King Alfred and Guthrum was, if any man wrong an ecclesiastic or a foreigner as to money or life, the king or earl and the bishop shall be to the injured in the place of kinsman and protector.
Among the laws of Athelstan (925-940), (3) directs that there be sung, every Friday at every monastery, a fifty (of psalms) for the king, and for all who will what he wills, and for others as they may merit; (7) describes the ordeal by fire and by water.[52]
Among the laws of King Edmund (940-946) made at the Synod of London, “Odda, archbishop, and Wulfstan, archbishop, and many other bishops being present,” it was ordered (1) that those in holy orders who have to teach God’s people by their life’s example keep their chastity according to their degree; (5) that every bishop repair the houses of God in his [district (?)], and also remind the king that all God’s churches be well conditioned.
The “Canons of Edgar” (A.D.959-975)[53]were made under the reforming influence of Archbishop Dunstan, and were intended as a standard of life and duty forthe clergy. They begin with the recognition, which is amplified and emphasized in the laws of subsequent reigns, that the great duty which the order of the clergy perform in the service of the nation is to celebrate the worship of Almighty God, and offer up prayers on behalf of the king and people. We give the substance of the canons as briefly as possible, but without any material omission, so that the reader may feel assured that he has the whole body of the legislation before him.
They decree that the ministers of God devoutly serve and minister to God, and intercede for all Christian folk; be faithful and obedient to their seniors (bishops, abbots, etc.); ready to help others, both Godward and manward; and be to their earthly lords true and faithful; that they honour one another, the juniors diligently hearing and loving their seniors, and the seniors diligently teaching the juniors.
That every one come to the synod yearly, attended by his clerk, and an orderly man as his servant; that he bring his books and vestments,[54]and ink and parchment for the constitutions;[55]and food for three days. That the priest report to the synod if any one has done him any serious injury, and that all should regard it as done to themselves, and obtain compensation according as the bishop shall determine. He shall also report if any one in hisparish lives openly against God, or has done mortal sin, whom he cannot move to amendment, or dare not for fear.
That no dispute between priests shall be brought before secular judges, but reconciled by their fellows or referred to the bishop; no priest shall desert the church to which he was ordained, but hold to it as his lawful spouse. That he do not deprive another of anything which belongs to him either in his church or parish or gildship; he shall not take another’s scholar without his leave; that in addition to lore, he diligently learn a handicraft; that the learned priest do not throw scorn on the half learned, but correct him; that the well-born priest do not despise the low-born, for if he will consider all men are of one birth; that he administer baptism as soon as asked, and bid every one to bring his children to be baptized within thirty-seven days[56]of their birth and not defer too long to have them confirmed by the bishop.
That he diligently promote Christianity, and banish heathenism, and forbid well-worship, necromancy, augury, man-worship, incantations, and many things which they practise with various spells, and “frithsplottum,”[57]and wich-elms and various trees and stones, and other phantasms by which many are deceived, and that devil’s craft whereby children are drawn through the earth, and the merriment that men make on the night of the year (New Year’s Eve).
That every Christian diligently train his child and teach him the Paternoster and Credo;[58]that on festivals men abstain from profane songs and devil’s games, and on Sundays from trading and folk motes; that men cease from lies and foolish talking and blasphemy; and from concubinage, and have lawful wives; that every man learn the Paternoster and Credo if he desire to lie in holy ground [at his burial], and be considered housel-worthy [fit to receive Holy Communion], because he is not a good Christian who is not willing to learn these, nor may rightly be a sponsor at baptism nor at confirmation; that there be no contentions on festival or fasting days, nor oaths, nor ordeals.
That the priests keep the churches with all reverence for the Divine ministry and pure worship, and for nothing else; nor do anything unbecoming there nor in the vicinity; nor allow idle talking, idle deeds, unbecoming drinkings, nor any other idle practices; nor allow dogs in the churchyard, nor more swine than a man is able to manage [or no dog nor swine so far as a man can prevent it], that nothing unbecoming be placed in the church; that at the church-wake men keep sober and pray diligently, nor practise drinking, nor anything else unbecoming; that no one be buried in church unless he was known when living to be so well pleasing to God as to be worthy of it.
That the priest do not celebrate the Eucharist in any house, but only in the church, except in case ofextreme sickness, and do not consecrate except upon a consecrated altar,[59]and not without book and the canon of the mass before his eyes, that he make no mistakes, and that he have a corporal when he celebrates, and asubuculum[60]under his albe, and all necessary things rightly appointed, and have a good and correct book, and not without some one to make the responses; that every one receive fasting except in case of extreme sickness; that the priest reserve the host ready for any that need; that he celebrate with pure wine and pure water; that no priest celebrate mass without partaking, or hallow it unless he is holy. That the chalice be of molten material, never of wood; that all things which approach the altar or belong to the church be purely and worthily appointed, and that there be always lights in the church at mass; that there be no negligence about anything consecrated, holy water, salt, incense, bread, nor anything holy; that no woman come near the altar while the priest celebrates.
That at the right times the bell be rung, and the priest say his hours in church, or there pray and intercede for all men.[61]That no priest come into the church or into his stall without his upper garment, or minister without his vestment. That no man in orders conceal his tonsure, or leave it badly shaven, or wear his beard long; that priests be not ignorantof fasts or festivals, lest they lead the people wrong.[62]
That every one accompany his fasts with almsgiving; that “priests in ecclesiastical ministries be all on one equality, and in a year’s space, be like-worthy in all ecclesiastical ministries;”[63]that they diligently teach the young handicrafts, that the Church may be helped thereby.
That priests preach every Sunday, and well explain. That no Christian eat blood of any kind. That they teach the people to pay their dues to God, plough-alms fifteen days after Easter, the tithe of young at Pentecost, fruits of the earth at All Saints, Peter’s penny on St. Peter’s day, and church scot at Martinmas. That priests so distribute people’s alms as to please God, and dispose the people to almsgiving; they shall sing psalms when they distribute alms, and bid the poor pray for the people. That priests avoid drunkenness, and warn the people against it; that they eschew unbecoming occupations, as ale-scop or glee man, but behave discreetly and worthily; abstain from oaths and forbid them; not consort too much with women, but love their own spouse, that is, their church; not bear false witness, or be the confidant of thieves; that the priest have not to do with ordeals or oaths, or be compurgator with a thane, unless the thane take the first oath; be not a hunter, or hawker, or dicer, but occupy himself with his books, as becomes his order.
That every priest hear confession and give penance, and carry the Eucharist to the sick, and anoint him if he desire it, and after death not allow any idle customs about the body, but bury it decently in the fear of God. That every priest have oil for baptism, and also for anointing the sick. Let him promote Christianity in every way, as well by preaching as by good example, and he shall be rewarded by God Almighty; and let him remember when he fetches the chrism [at the yearly synod] to say the prayers for the king and the bishop.
The laws of King Ethelred (979-1016), made with the counsel of both the ecclesiastical and lay witan, are conceived in a very Christian spirit, and expressed with considerable eloquence. We think it worth while to give in full some of them which relate to the general desire of the authorities in Church and State to promote religion. (1) This, then, is first, that we all love and worship one God, and zealously hold one Christianity, and every heathenship totally cast out, that every man be regarded as entitled to right, and peace and friendship be lawfully observed. (2) That Christian men and uncondemned be not sold out of the country, and especially into a heathen nation, that those souls perish not that Christ bought with His own life. (3) That Christian men be not condemned to death for all too little, and in general let light punishments be decreed, and let not for a little God’s handiwork and His own purchase which He dearly bought be destroyed. (4) That every manof every order readily submit to the law which belongs to him; above all, let the servants of God, bishops and abbots, monks and mynchens, priests and nuns,[64]live according to their rule, and fervently intercede for all Christian people. (5, 6) Monks are not to live out of minster, but to observe specially three things: their chastity and monkish customs, and the service of the Lord. (7) Canons, where their benefice is, so that they have a refectory and dormitory, are to keep their minster rightly; and mass-priests to keep themselves from the anger of God. (9) Full well they know that they have not rightly, through concubinage, intercourse with women; he who will abstain from this and serve God rightly, shall be worthy of thane-wēr, and thane-right both in life and in the grave; he who will not, let his honour wane before God and before the world. (10) Let every church be in grith (protection) of God and the king, and of all Christian people; let no man henceforth reduce a church to servitude, nor unlawfully make church-mongering, nor turn out a church minister without the bishop’s counsel. (11) God’s dues are to be willingly paid, plough-alms, tithe of young, earth fruits, Rome fee, and light scot thrice a year,[65]and soul scot at the open grave, or, if buried elsewhere, to be paid to the minster to which it belongs. (13-19) Sundays and holy days are definedas in previous laws, and at those holy tides let there be to all men peace and concord, and be every strife appeased. (22) Let every Christian man strictly keep his Christianity, and go frequently to shrift and housel. (23) Let every injustice and wrong-doing be carefully cast out of the country, and (26) God’s laws be zealously loved by word and deed, then will God soon be merciful to this nation.[66]Lastly (34), it is the duty of us all to love and worship one God and strictly hold one Christianity, and totally cast out every kind of heathenism; and (35) let us faithfully support one royal lord, and all defend life and land together as best we may, and to God Almighty pray with inward heart.
The canons which go under the name of Elfric, and are of the end of the tenth century, add a little to the knowledge we have already gleaned. The 10th canon gives a list of the seven orders of the clergy under the degree of bishop, viz. ostiarius, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, and priest, and defines their several offices. (17) reckons a priest and a bishop to be of the same order. (19) requires the priests and inferior clergy to be at church at the seven canonical hours:Uhtsang(Prime) about 4 a.m.,Primsang(Matins) 6 a.m.,Undersang(Terce) at 9,Middaysang(Sext) at noon,Nonsang(Nones) at 3 p.m.,Æfensang(Vespers), andNightsang(Nocturns). (21) Every priest before ordination to be furnished with correct copies of the Psalter, Book of Epistlesand Gospels, Missal, Hymnary, Penitential, and Lectionary. (23) The parish priest, every Sunday and holy day, is to explain to the people in English the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Gospel for the day. (25) Not to celebrate in a house except one be sick. (27) No priest is to take money for baptism or other office. (28) Priests are not to remove from one parish to another for the sake of advantage, but to remain in the cure to which they were ordained. (29) Not to turn merchant, soldier, or lawyer. (30) To have always two oils, one for children, the other for the sick. (33) Orders the canons of the first four councils to be regarded like the four Gospels; “there have been many councils held in later ages, but these four are of the greatest authority.” (36) “The housel is Christ’s body, not bodily but spiritually, not the body in which He suffered, but the body about which He spake, when He blessed bread and wine for housel.... Understand now that the Lord who could before His passion change the bread to His body and the wine to His blood spiritually, that the same daily blesses, by the hands of His priests, the bread and wine to His spiritual body and blood.”
An important feature in the administration of criminal law was the recognition of the right ofSanctuaryto the house of the king and the churches, which had probably been introduced from the imperial law by the influence of the missionaries. The laws of Ine recognize the right of sanctuary to a church; a murderer taking sanctuary is to have his life butto make bôt, according to law, a theowe who has incurred scourging shall be excused the penalty.
The laws of Alfred allow three days’ sanctuary in the “mynsterham,” which is free from the king’s farm, or any other free community, with a bôt of 120s.for its violation, to be paid to the brotherhood; and seven days in every church hallowed by the bishop, with the penalty of the king’s “mund and byrd” and the church’s “frith” for its violation. The Church ealdor is to take care that no one give food to the refugee. If he be willing to give up his weapons to his foes, then let them keep him thirty days, and give notice to his kinsmen (that they may arrange the legal bôt[67]). King Athelstan’s laws further modify the right of sanctuary; a thief or robber fleeing to the king or to any church, or to the bishop, is to have a term of nine days; if he flee to an ealdorman, or an abbot, or a thane, three days; and he who harbours him longer is to be worthy of the same penalty as the thief. The king’s grith (protection) is to extend from his burhgate where he is dwelling, on its four sides three miles three furlongs and three acres breadth, and nine feet nine palms and nine barley-corns. A law of Canute already quoted (p. 53) assigns different values of grith (protection) to the different kinds of churches, the grith bryce (penalty for violation of grith) of a chief minster is £5; of a minster of the middle class, 120s., and of one yet less where there is a small parish (lytel þeoþðom, in the laws of Henry I.), provided there be a burial-place, 60s.,and of a field-church, where there is no burial-place, 30s.
Akin to this privilege of sanctuary is the penalty for acts of violence in certain places and before certain persons. By the laws of King Ine, if any man fight in a king’s house he shall forfeit all his property; if in a minster, make bôt of 120s.By the laws of King Alfred, if a man fight or draw his weapon before an archbishop he shall make bôt of 150s.; if before a bishop or an ealdorman, 100s.The laws of Alfred enact that if any man steal from a church he shall restore it and lose his hand, or redeem his hand at the amount of his “wergild;” it is to be remembered that churches were used as places of deposit for valuables, and the law probably is intended to protect these as well as the movables belonging to the church itself.
The laws of Wihtred of Kent make the word of a king or a bishop incontrovertible without an oath; a priest, like a king’s thane, is to clear himself with his own oath at the altar; he is to stand before the altar in his vestments, and laying his hand upon the altar, to say, “Veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior;”[68]the superior of a monastery is to make oath like a priest; a clerk, like a “ceorlish man,” to make like oath at the altar, but to have four compurgators. The rank of a priest as equal to that of a thane is frequently recognized.[69]The laws of Ine (15 and 19), make the oath of a man who is a communicant worth twice as much as that of a man who is not.
It is convenient to gather into one view what the laws say about theTithe and other Paymentswhich the people made to the church. The laws did not then for the first time enact these payments. The first missionaries had no doubt taught the people that it was the duty of Christian men to maintain the church and the clergy by tithes and offerings. If the assertion be true that the people had been accustomed to pay tithe to their heathen priests, and there is evidence in favour of the probability, then it came the easier to them.[70]The kings and their witans, in this as in many other matters, recognized and gave the sanction of law to existing custom. The payment of tithe was recognized as obligatory in the Legatine Council of Cealchythe in 785, which being attended and confirmed by the Kings of Kent, Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria, and their ealdormen, had the authority of a Witenagemot, just at the time that similar measures were being taken in the Frank dominions. From that time the payment was frequently mentioned in the laws. The laws of King Alfred define the tithe as of “moving and growing things.” The laws of King Edmund enact that every man pay tithe, church scot, Rome fee, and plough-alms on pain of excommunication. The laws of Edgar define to whom the payment shall be made, viz. to the old minster to which the district belongs; a thane who has a church at which thereis a burial-place, may pay a third of his tithe to his own priest; if the thane’s church is without a burial-place, he is to pay his tithe to the minster, and church scot and plough-alms are also to be paid to the minster, and the thane may pay to his priest what he will. They also recite the times at which these payments are to be made on penalty of the full “wite” (fine to the king) which the Doom-book specifies. They also prescribe a process for the recovery of tithe; the king’s reeve and the bishop’s reeve, with the priest of the minster to whom it is due, are to take the tithe by force, and the rest is to be forfeited half to the king and half to the bishop, whether the defaulter be a king’s man or a thane’s. The payment of the “hearth penny” (St. Peter’s penny) is to be enforced by a very curious process: the defaulter is to be taken to Rome—perhaps it means to the house of the pope’s agent, for the collection of Peter pence—and, in addition to what is due, is to pay 30d., and bring a certificate of the payment, and then is to forfeit 120s.to the king; if he refuse, he is to be taken again to Rome, and on his return to forfeit 200s.; and if he still refuse, he is to forfeit all that he has. The severity of the enactment suggests the question whether there was at that time on the part of some persons a special unwillingness to pay the “penny of St. Peter.”
Thereligious observance of Sundaywas the subject of frequent enactments. The third of the laws of Ine enacts that if a theow work on Sunday by his lord’s command, the theow shall be exempt frompenalty, but his lord shall pay 30s.; if the theow work of his own accord (since he has no money), he shall “pay with his skin,”i.e.shall be scourged. If a free man work on that day without his lord’s command, he shall forfeit his freedom or pay 60s.; a priest offending shall be liable to a double penalty. The laws of Wihtred of Kent contain enactments to the same effect. The laws of Alfred encourage the observance of other holy days by the enactment that “to all free men these days be given” (i.e.free men are not to be required by their lords to work on these days): twelve days at the Nativity, Good Friday—“the day on which Christ conquered the devil,” St. Gregory’s day, seven days before Easter and seven days after, St. Peter’s day and St. Paul’s day, in autumn a full week before the festival of St. Brice (Nov. 13), one day before All Saints, and the four Wednesdays in the four fasting (Ember) weeks. The law does not free theowes from work on these days, but suggests to their masters to give them, in God’s name, such relaxation from work on such of these days as they shall deserve. The laws of Edgar define that Sunday is to be kept from noontide of Saturday till dawn of Monday. At the Council of Eynsham (1009), it was further enjoined that there be no markets or folk motes (the laws of Canute also forbid hunting) on Sundays; that all St. Mary’s feast tides be honoured with those of every apostle, and Fridays be kept as a fast. Festivals of English saints were from time to time added to the Kalendar. We have seenthat the Council of Clovesho (747), decreed the observance of days in honour of St. Gregory and St. Augustine. In the decrees of the Council of Enysham we find: “The witan have chosen that St. Edward’s mass day shall be celebrated all over England on the XV. Kal. Apr.” (March 18). The laws of Canute repeat the obligation of the previous holy days, and after mention of the witan’s appointment of a festival of St. Edward, add a festival of St. Dunstan on XIV. Kal. Junias (May 19).
Slaverywas a recognized institution of the society of those times. The class of “theowmen” was probably made up partly of conquered Britons and their descendants, partly of captives taken in the mutual wars of the heptarchic kingdoms, partly of freemen who had been condemned to this penalty for their crimes or incurred it by poverty. A prominent feature of the influence of Christianity was the encouragement it gave to masters to treat their theowes with kindness, and its success in promoting their manumission as an action well-pleasing to God. Several of the codes of law deal with the subject. We have seen already how the legislation on the observance of Sundays and holy days did not go so far as to interfere with the right of the masters, but did invite them, for the love of God, to give their theowes some relaxation of labour on the great festivals of the Church. A law of Wihtred, King of Kent, defines that if any one give freedom to his man at the altar, he shall be folk-free, though it retains to the freedom-giverthe heritage and wergild and mund of his family. A law of Ine enacts that he who sells over sea his own countryman, bond or free, though he be guilty, shall pay according to his wēr.
A law of Alfred enacts that if any man buy a Christian slave, he shall serve for six years, and on the seventh he shall go out as he came in, with the same clothes, etc.; if he came in with a wife he shall go out with her, but if the lord have given him a wife, she and her children shall still belong to the lord. A law of Ethelred (978-1016) enacts that a slave (uncondemned) shall not be sold out of the country.
The Church set the example of the manumission of its slaves.[71]At the Council of Cealchithe (816) it was unanimously agreed that each prelate at his death should bequeath one-tenth of his personal property to the poor, and set at liberty all bondsmen of English descent whom his Church had acquired during his administration, and that each bishop and abbot who survived him should manumit three of his slaves, and give 3s.to each. The laity followed the example. In the English wills published by Thorpe[72]a considerable number occur in which the testator gives freedom to serfs,e.g.Queen Æthelflæd sets free half of her men in every vill; Wynflæd gives a long list of serfs by name who are to be freed, and the freedom of penal serfs is given in nine other wills.
Still the institution continued. At the end of the Saxon period, a thriving trade in the export of English slaves was carried on at Bristol, till Bishop Wulstan put an end to it. The Twenty-ninth Canon of the Synod of Westminster, held under Anselm in 1102, enacted that there should be no buying and selling of men in England as heretofore, as if they were kine or oxen. But this did not put a stop to it. Slaves were bought and sold by Church dignitaries as late as the fourteenth century, as we shall see in a later chapter, and the status of serfdom continued to the sixteenth century.
Coronation of Harold by Archbishop Stigand. Bayeux tapestry.