ESTABLISHMENT

King Canute declared himself a Christian, things rapidly assumed a more promising aspect; and when, in 1042, the English family was restored to the throne, the Church was at its highest point of power and influence.

The student of the history of the Church of England in all current controversies concerning her will do well to bear in mind her essential features which in outline we here indicate.

Legally and historically continuous with the Church of the most ancient times, the Church of England acknowledges the supremacy of the Crown as that to which "the chief government of all estates of the realm, whether ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain."

She is established, or recognized by the law as the National Church, and endowed—that is, the gifts of land or tithes made to her in ancient times are secured to her by law.

The Church of England has always had a national character. In medieval Acts of Parliament she was called by the same name as at present, and was never identical with the Church of Rome, which was usually described as the court (or curia) of Rome.

The worship of the English Church has never been identical with that of Rome.

The second canon of the synod of Cloveshoe, 747, indicates a complete independence in the English Church, and implies a censure on any who ventured to appeal to Rome.

"No church," says Professor Freeman, was more distinctly the child of the Roman Church than the English Church; but for that very reason the English Church kept more of distinctness and independence than any other. While the other Western Churches might pass, sometimes for parts of the Roman Church, sometimes for its subjects, the Church of England kept the position, dutiful, but not servile, of a child who has reached full age, and who no longer forms part of his father's household."

1

1 See Freeman's "Norman Conquest," vol. v. p. 340.

In England, alone in the West, a purely national Church arose. The English Church, reverencing Rome, but not slavishly bowing down to her, grew up with a distinctly national character, and gradually infused her influence into all the feelings and habits of the English people.1

This powerful corporation paid only a doubtful and undefined allegiance to Rome, and was not at all in the condition of vassalage in which most of the Continental churches were placed.

The early English Church, as Dr. Perry says, did not accord with the Roman in the materialistic outline of the Eucharist. The doctrine of the Church of England at this period may be fairly gathered from the writings of the Abbot Ælfric, which were approved by Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury. In these the consecration of the Eucharist is explained, not as involving any material change in the elements, but as conferring a spiritual presence.

England before the Conquest was singularly exempt from direct interference by the Pope. The visits of the Archbishops to Rome to receive the pall in person seem to have been regarded as a sufficient recognition of the dignity of the Apostolic See. The visitatorial jurisdiction which Gregory VII. attempted to exercise was resisted by William the Conqueror, who formally laid down the rule that no legate should be allowed to land in England unless he had been appointed at the request of the King and the Church. Nor was the arrival of a legate more welcome to the clergy. Anselm had to remonstrate with Pascal II. for giving to the Archbishop of Vienne legatine power over England, and in doing so to assert that such authority belonged by prescriptive right to the see of Canterbury."

The Church was not endowed any more than established by any definite act of the State, but, growing up together with the State, it obtained sources of revenue from the piety of the faithful, its position and its revenues being, not created, but defended and secured by law.

1 See Freeman's "Norman Conquest," vol. i. p. 32.

2 See Stubbs' "Constitutional History," vol. iii. pp. 298-301.

At the time of the Norman Conquest there were about 4,500 parish churches in England, besides numerous monasteries and the cathedral churches of the sees.

The correctional police of the whole population was in the hands of the Church. Civil and ecclesiastical causes were heard in the same courts, and synods adjudicated in cases of property when the rights of the Church were concerned.

The priest took rank with the thane; the bishop ranked with the ealdorman, and presided jointly with him over the shire-gemót.

The separation of the ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdictions by the Conqueror led almost immediately to claims on the part of Churchmen to exemption from all temporal jurisdiction.1

All suits touching the temporalities of the clergy were submitted to the jurisdiction of the king's courts, and against so reasonable a rule scarcely any traces of resistance on the part of the clergy are to be found.

The right of patronage was determined in the king's courts, but some concerted and harmonious action with the Church courts was indispensable.

In criminal suits the secular courts were bound to assist the spiritual courts in obtaining redress and vindication for clergymen who were injured by laymen.

Of the temporal causes which were subject to the cognizance of ecclesiastical courts, the chief were matrimonial and testamentary suits and actions for the recovery of ecclesiastical payments, tithes and customary fees.

When King William held his Gemót, and Lanfranc directly after held his Synod, the prelates who took part in both assemblies were, then as now, members at once of the Upper House of Parliament and of the Upper House of Convocation.2

The great places in the Church were filled by Normans or other strangers whom William could trust. Englishmen. 1 See Freeman's "Norman Conquest," vol. v. p. 494.

2 Ibid., p. 416.

ESTABLISHMENT

were wholly shut out from the rank of bishop, and but sparingly admitted to that of abbot.1

Under the Conqueror, when bishoprics were systematically bestowed on the king's clerks as a reward for temporal service, and the king's chancellor succeeded to a bishopric as a matter of course, the bishops became courtiers, and men of business, rather than Churchmen. The bishop became a baron, holding his lands by military tenure, and possessing manors, castles, and military retinue."

The king's love of order led him to admit the canonical rights of the chapters of the churches, the synodical powers of the clergy, and even the occasional exercise by the popes of a supreme appellate and legatine jurisdiction. He, however, saw distinctly the point at which his own authority must limit this liberty. The bishops might be elected by the chapters, but the election must be held in his court; the clergy might be trusted without compulsion to choose his candidates. The councils might be held when the archbishop chose, but the king's consent must be obtained before the assembly could meet or exercise any legislative power. Papal jurisdiction was not excluded, but no legate might visit England without royal licence.3

Principles which regulated the Relations between Church and State prior to the Conquest.

The Bishop of Chester-whose words we substantially give-tells us that the period before the Norman Conquest may naturally be divided into three sections: an earlier one, during which the Christian Church acted as a missionary body or as a purely voluntary association; a second, during which it was accepted as the national religion in the several kingdoms into which England was then divided, and possessing a constitutional unity solely by virtue of its

1 See Freeman's "Norman Conquest," vol. iv. p. 330.

2 Ibid., vol. v. p. 496.

See Stubbs' "Constitutional History," vol. i. p. 317.

spiritual organization; and a third, during which it was the recognized religious system of the united nation. During the first of these periods, he tells us, it is obvious that the entire authority of the Church, as far as it could be said to exist, was external to the State. During the second, the consolidated machinery of central authority was external to the State, although, in its complete area, it coincided with the area of the kingdom in which it existed. And in the third there was such a union of Church and State as was consistent with the joint action of two bodies of different origin and history, working together for civil and religious ends.

Of the later Anglo-Saxon periods he says that, close and somewhat confused as the relations of Church and State became, the source of legislative authority in the Church must have been always distinguished from the source of authority in the State by the fact that in its origin it lay outside the nationality, and was, by its intercommunion with other Churches, and especially by its relations to Rome, a part of a great ecclesiastical system which at that time had no analogy whatever in the secular relations of the State. "Ecclesiastical suits in England were heard and decided in the motes or public assemblies of the shire and hundred, which were held at fixed times and places, or by special summons in special cases, and in which the bishop and ealdorman, sitting side by side, as representatives of Church and State, are said to have expounded the divine and secular law."

The Anglo-Saxon bishops, as the lords of large estates, the jurisdiction of which was separated from that of the shire-mote, possessed also courts of secular jurisdiction, in which ordinary civil and criminal cases arising between laymen would be tried. It is very probable that in early times confusion might arise as to the limits of the two courts of jurisdiction; but, on the analogy of lay jurisdiction of later times, it is probable that the bishop's steward was president of such courts, whilst in the purely ecclesiastical causes the bishop himself, or perhaps his archdeacon, might preside.