The almost total absence of documentary evidence leaves us in great doubt as to the condition of the church in England previous to the organization brought about by Theodore. It is nevertheless probable that it followed in all essential points the course which characterized other missionary establishments. The earliest missionaries were for the most part monks; but Augustine was accompanied by clerics also[902], and in every case the conversion of a district was rapidly followed by the establishment of a cathedral or a corresponding ecclesiastical foundation. These were at first central stations, from which the assembled clergy sallied forth to visit the neighbouring villages and towns, and preach the tidings of salvation: the necessities of daily provision, the attainment of greater security
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for their persons, the mutual aid and consolation in the perils and difficulties of their task, all supplied motives in favour of a cœnobitical mode of life: monks and clerics were confounded together through the circumstances of the adventure in which they shared; nay the very administration of those rites by which the imagination of the heathen Saxons was so strongly worked upon, could only be conducted on a sufficiently imposing scale by an assemblage of ecclesiastics. To this must be added the protection to be derived from settling on one spot, in the immediate neighbourhood of a royal vill, and under the safeguard of the royal power: for though the residences of kings were rarely in cities, yet their proximity offered much more secure guarantees than the outlying villages and clearings in the mark; even as the general tendencies of courtly life were likely to present fewer points of opposition than the characteristic bigotry of heathen, i. e. rural populations. This combination of circumstances probably led at an early period to that approximation between the modes of life of monks and clerks, which at the close of the eighth century Chrodogang succeeded in enforcing in his archbishopric of Metz, but which had been attempted four centuries earlier by Eusebius of Vercelli[903]. Both the Roman and Scottish missionaries
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followed the same plan, which indeed appears to be the natural one, and to have been generally adopted on all similar occasions, whether in ancient Germany, in Peru or in the most modern missions of Australia or New Zealand. In Beda’s Ecclesiastical History, which in these respects no doubt was founded upon ancient and contemporary records, we frequently read of prelates leaving their monasteries (by which general name churches as well as collections of monks are designated) to preach the Gospel and administer the rite of baptism in distant villages[904]. But this system had also
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inconveniences of no slight character; the distance of the converts from the church, the necessity for daily superintendence and continual exhortation on the part of the preacher, the very danger and fatigue of repeated journeys into rude, uncultivated parts of the country, must have soon forced upon
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the clergy the necessity of providing other machinery than they as yet possessed. The multiplication of centres of instruction was the first and greatest point to be ensured; whereby a more constant intercourse between the neophyte and the missionary might be attained. This had long been secured in other countries by the appointment of single presbyters to reside in single districts, under the general direction of the bishop; or, where circumstances required it, by the settlement of several presbyters under an archipresbyter or archpriest, who was responsible for the conduct of his companions. And as the district of the bishop himself commonly went by the name of a diocese or parish, both these terms were applied to denote the smaller circuit within which the presbyter was expected to exert himself for the propagation of the faith, and the due performance of the established rites, and to perform such functions as had been entrusted to the ministers of the faithful, for the better management of the ecclesiastical affairs of the congregation. The custom of the neighbouring countries of Gaul offered sufficient evidence of the practicability of such an arrangement, which had long been in use in older established churches: we may therefore readily suppose that so beneficial a system would be adopted with all convenient speed in England. As long as the possessions of the clergy were confined to a small plot whereon their church was built, and while they depended for support upon the contributions in kind which the rude piety of their new converts bestowed, the
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bishops could naturally not proceed to plant these clerical colonies of their own authority: though, as soon as they became masters of vills and manors and estates of their own, they probably adopted the plan of sending single presbyters into them, partly to discharge the clerical duties of their station, partly to act as stewards, administrators or bailiffs of the property, the proceeds of which were paid over to the episcopal church, and laid out at the discretion of the bishop[905]. But the zeal of the people could here assist the benevolent objects of the clergy. The inconvenience of having a distance to traverse in order to attend the ministrations of religion, the desire to aid in the meritorious work of the conversion, the earnest hope to establish a peculiar claim upon the favour of Heaven, nay perhaps even the less worthy motives of vanity and ambition, disposed the landowner to raise a church upon his own estate for the use of himself and his surrounding tenants or friends. From a very early period this disposition was cultivated and encouraged;
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and the bishops relinquished the patronage of the church to the founder, reserving of course to themselves the canonical subjection and consecration of the presbyter who was ordained to the title. During the seventh century this had become common in the Frankish empire, and Theodore followed, or introduced, the same rule in this country[906]. Whether under this influence or not, we find churches to have so arisen during his government of the English sees, whose sole archbishop he was. Beda incidentally mentions the dedication by John of Beverley of churches, for Puch and Addi, two Northumbrian noblemen, and these were no doubt
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private foundations[907]. We still possess various regulations of Theodore, and of nearly contemporary prelates, which refer to such separate churches, proving how very general they had become, and how strictly they required to be guarded against the avarice or other unworthy motives of the founders, and the simoniacal practices both of priest and layman. In the thirty-eighth chapter of his Capitula[908] we find the following directions:—“Any presbyter who shall have obtained a parish by means of a price, is absolutely to be deposed, seeing that he is known to hold it contrary to the discipline of ecclesiastical rule. And likewise, he who shall by means of money have expelled a presbyter lawfully ordained to a church, and so have obtained it entirely for himself; which vice, so widely diffused, is to be remedied with the utmost zeal. Also it is to be forbidden both to clerks and laics, that no one shall presume to give any church whatever to
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a presbyter, without the licence and consent of the bishop.” These churches frequently were granted to abbeys or to the bishops themselves; and in the latter case they were served by priests especially appointed thereunto from the cathedral[909]. At this early period when tithes were not demandable as matter of right, and when the founders of these churches were already betraying a tendency to speculate in church-building, by claiming for themselves the altare or produce of the voluntary oblations of the faithful, the bishops found it necessary to insist that every church should be endowed with a sufficient glebe or estate in land: the amount fixed was one hide, equivalent to the estate of a single family, which, properly managed, would support the presbyter and his attendant clerks. Archbishop Ecgberht rules[910]: “Ut unicuique aecclesiae vel una mansa integra absque alio servitio attribuatur, et presbyteri in eis constituti non de decimis neque de oblationibus fidelium nec de domibus, neque de atriis vel hortis iuxta aecclesiam positis, neque de praescripta mansa, aliquod servitium faciant, praeter aecclesiasticum: et si aliquod amplius habuerint, inde senioribus suis, secundum patriae morem, debitum servitium impendant.” And this regulation, though probably already established
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by custom, obtained the force of law in the Frankish empire, by a constitution of Hludwich in 816[911]. This glebe-land the bishop seems not to have been able to interfere with, so as to alienate it from the particular church, in favour of another, even when both churches were within his own subjection[912].
But although many churches may have arisen in this manner, a large proportion of which gradually found their way into the hands of bishops and abbots, and although these last may have erected churches, as the necessities of the case demanded, in the various districts over which they exercised rights of property, the greater number of parish-churches (plebes, aecclesiae baptismales, tituli maiores) had probably a very different origin. It
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had been shown that in all likelihood every Mark had its religious establishment, its fanum, delubrum, or sacellum, as the Latin authors call them, its hearh, as the Anglosaxon no doubt designated them[913]; and further, that the priest or priests attached to these heathen churches had lands—perhaps freewill offerings too—for their support. It has also been shown that a well-grounded plan of turning the religio loci to account was acted upon by all the missionaries, and that wherever a substantial building was found in existence, it was taken possession of for the behoof of the new religion. Under such circumstances it would seem that nothing could be more natural than the establishment of a baptismal church in every independent mark that adopted Christianity, and that the substitution of one creed for the other not only did not require the abolition of the old machinery, but would be much facilitated by retaining it. It is in this manner then that I understand the assertions of Beda and others, that certain missionary prelates established churches per loca, such churches being certainly not cathedrals[914] or abbey-churches.
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There cannot be the least reason to doubt that parish-churches were generally established in the time of Beda, less than half a century after the period to which most of the instances in the notes refer[915]: and it is not very probable that they were all owing to private liberality. In a similar manner probably arose the numerous parish-churches which before the close of the eighth century were founded, especially by the English missionaries, on the continent of Europe[916]. Thus in the seventh
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century in England the ecclesiastical machinery consisted of episcopal churches served by a body of clerks or monks,—sometimes united under the same rule, and a sufficient number of whom had the necessary orders of priests, deacons and the like; probably also churches served by a number of presbyters under the guidance of an archipresbyter or archpriest[917], bearing some resemblance to our later collegiate foundations; and numerous parish-churches established on the sites of the ancient fanes in the marks, or erected by the liberality of kings, bishops and other landowners on
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their own manorial estates. The wealthy and powerful had also their own private chaplains, who performed the rites of religion in their oratories[918], and who even at this early period probably bore the name of handpreostas, by which in much later times they were distinguished from the túnpreostas, village or parochial priests[919].
As early as the fifth century the fourth general council (Chalcedon, an. 451) had laid down the rule that the ecclesiastical and political establishments should be assimilated as much as possible[920]; and as the central power was represented by the
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metropolitans and the bishops, so the subsidiary authorities had their corresponding functionaries in the parish priests, priests of collegiate churches and their dependents. We possess a curious parallel drawn by Walafrid Strabo in the earliest years of the ninth century, on this subject. In his book De Exordiis Rerum Aecclesiasticarum (cap. 31), he thus compares the civil and ecclesiastical polities: “Porro sicut comites quidam Missos suos praeponunt popularibus, qui minores causas determinent, ipsis maiora reservent, ita quidam episcopi chorepiscopos habent. Centenarii qui et centuriones et Vicarii, qui per pagos statuti sunt, Presbyteris Plebei, qui baptismales aecclesias tenent, et minoribus praesunt Presbyteris, conferri queunt. Decuriones et Decani, qui sub ipsis vicariis quaedam minora exercent, Presbyteris titulorum possunt comparari. Sub ipsis ministris centenariorum sunt adhuc minores qui Collectarii, Quaterniones, et Duumviri possunt appellari, qui colligunt populum, et ipso numero ostendunt se decanis esse minores. Sunt autem ista vocabula ab antiquitate mutuata,” etc[921].
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Both in spiritual and in temporal matters, the clergymen thus dispersed over the face of the country were accountable to the bishop, whose vicars they were taken to be, that is to say, in whose place (“quorum vice”) they performed their functions. The “presbyteri plebei” or parish priests had the administration of all the sacraments and rites, except those reserved to the bishop,—such for instance as confirmation, ordination, the consecration of churches, the chrism, and the like: these were denied them, but they could baptize, marry, bury, and administer the communion. And gradually, as matter of convenience, they were invested with the internal jurisdiction, as it was called,—the “iurisdictio fori interni,”—that is to say confession, penance and absolution, but solely as representatives and vicars of the bishop[922].
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It was this gradual extension of the powers of the presbyter that destroyed the distinction between the collegiate churches served by the archpriest and his clergy, and the church in which a single presbyter administered the daily rites of religion. The word parochia which at first had been properly confined to the former churches, became generally applied to the latter, when the difference between their spiritual privileges entirely vanished.
In the theory of the early church, the whole district subject to the rule of the bishop formed but one integral mass: the parochial clergy even in spirituals were but the bishop’s ministers or vicars, and in temporals they were accountable to him for every gain which accrued to the church. This he was to distribute at his own discretion; it is true that there were canons of the church which in some degree regulated his conduct, and probably the presbyters of his cathedral, his witan or council, did not neglect to offer their advice on so interesting a subject. To him it belonged to assign the funds for the support of the parochial clergy, out of the
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share which was commanded to be set apart for the sustenance of the ministers of the altar: to him also it belonged to apportion the share which was directed to be applied to the repairs of the fabric of the churches in his diocese; and he also had the immediate distribution of that portion which was devoted to the charitable purposes of relieving the poor and ransoming the enslaved,—a noble privilege, more valuable in rude days like those than in our civilized age it could be, even had the sacrilegious hand of time not removed it from among the jewels of the mitre.
Occasionally, no doubt, the parochial clergy, though supported by their glebe-lands, had reason to complain that the hospitality or charity of the bishop, exceeding the bounds of the canonical division, left them but an insufficient remuneration for their services: and more than one council found it useful to impress upon the prelate the claims of his less fortunate or deserving brethren[923]: but on the whole there can be little question that piety on the one hand and superstition on the other combined to supply an ample fund for the support of the clerical body; and that what with free-will offerings, grants of lands, fines, rents, tithes, compulsory
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contributions, and the sums paid in commutation of penance, the clergy in England were at all times provided not only with the means of comfort, but even with wealth and splendour. The sources and nature of ecclesiastical income will form the subject of a separate chapter.
As a body the clergy in England were placed very high in the social scale: the valuable services which they rendered to their fellow-creatures,—their dignity as ministers and stewards of the mysteries of the faith,—lastly the ascetical course of life which many of them adopted, struck the imagination and secured the admiration of their rude contemporaries. At first too, they were honourably distinguished by the possession of arts and learning, which could be found in no other class; and although the most celebrated of their commentaries upon the Biblical books or the works of the Fathers, do not now excite in us any very great feelings of respect, they must have had a very different effect upon our simple progenitors. Whatever state of ignorance the body generally may have fallen into in the ninth and tenth centuries, the seventh and eighth had produced men famous in every part of Europe for the soundness and extent of their learning. To them England owed the more accurate calculations which enabled the divisions of times and seasons to be duly settled; the decency, nay even splendour, of the religious services were maintained by their skilful arrangement; painting, sculpture and architecture were made familiar through their efforts, and the best examples of these civilising arts were
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furnished by their churches and monasteries: it is probable that their lands in general supplied the best specimens of cultivation, and that the leisure of the cloister was often bestowed in acquiring the art of healing, so valuable in a rude state of society, liable to many ills which our more fortunate period could, with ordinary care, escape[924]. Their manuscripts yet attract our attention by the exquisite beauty of the execution; they were often skilled in music, and other pursuits which at once delight and humanise us. To them alone could resort be had for even the little instruction which the noble and wealthy coveted: they were the only schoolmasters[925]; and those who yet preserve the affectionate regard which grows up between a generous boy and him to whom he owed his earliest intellectual
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training, can judge with what force such motives acted in a state of society so different from our own. Moreover the intervention of the clergy in many most important affairs of life was almost incessant. Marriage—that most solemn of all the obligations which the man and the citizen can contract—was celebrated under their superintendence: without the instruments which they prepared no secure transfer of property could be made; and as arbitrators or advisers, they were resorted to for the settlement of disputed right, and the avoidance of dangerous litigation. Lastly, although during the Anglosaxon period we nowhere find them putting forward that shocking claim to consideration which afterwards became so common—the being makers of their Creator in the sacrament of the Eucharist,—we cannot doubt that their calling was supposed to confer a peculiar holiness upon them; or that the hád, the orders, they received, were taken to remove them from the class of common Christians into a higher and more sacred sphere.
Great privileges were accordingly given to them in a social point of view. They enjoyed a high wergyld, an increased mundbyrd, and a distinguished secular rank. The weofodþegn or servant of the altar who duly performed his important
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functions, was reckoned on the same footing as the secular thane, woroldþegn, who earned nobility and wealth in the service of an earthly master. The oaths of a priest or deacon were of more force than those of a free man; and it was rendered easier for them to rebut accusations by the aid of their clerical compurgators, than for the simple ceorl or even þegn, and his gegyldan.
It was nevertheless a wise provision that their privileges should not extend so far as to remove them entirely from participation in the general interests of their countrymen, or make them aliens from the obligations which the Anglosaxon state imposed upon all its members. Personal privileges they enjoyed, like other distinguished members of the body politic, as long as their conduct individually was such as to merit them; but they were not cut off entirely from the common burthens or the common advantages: and this will not unsatisfactorily explain the immunity which England long enjoyed, from struggles by which other European states—and in later periods even our own—were convulsed to their foundations. In their cathedrals and conventual churches, or scattered through the parishes over all the surface of the land, but sharing in the interests of all classes, they acted as a body of mediators between the strong and the weak, repressing the violent, consoling and upholding the sufferer, and offering even to the despairing serf the hope of a future rest from misery and subjection.
On the first establishment of conventual bodies
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we have seen that a complete immunity had been granted from the secular services to which all other lands were liable[926]; but that the inconvenience of this course soon led to its abandonment. It is difficult to say whether this immunity was at any time extended to the hide, “mansus aecclesiasticus,” or “dos aecclesiae” of the parish-church: it is on the contrary probable that it never was so extended; for no hint of the sort occurs in our own annals or charters; and it is well known that the church lands among the neighbouring Franks were subject, like those of the laity, to the burthens of the state[927]. From every hide which passed into clerical hands, the king could to the very last demand the inevitable dues, military service, repairs of roads and fortifications; and though it is not likely that the parish priest was called upon to serve in person, it is also not likely that he was excused the payment of his quota toward the arming and support of a substitute in the field[928].
Nor did the legislation of the Teutonic nations contemplate the withdrawal of the clergy from the authority of the secular tribunals. The sin of the
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clergyman might indeed be punished in the proper manner by his ecclesiastical superior: penance and censure might be inflicted by the bishop upon his delinquent brother; but the crime of the citizen was reserved for the cognizance of the state[929].
This had been the custom of the Franks, even while they permitted the clergy, who belonged to the class of Roman provincials, to be judged by the Roman law[930]: it was for centuries the practice
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in England, and would probably so have remained had the error of the Conqueror in separating the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions not prepared the way for the troublous times of the Henries and Edwards. In the case of manslaughter, Ælfred commands that the priest shall be secularised before he is delivered for punishment to the ordinary tribunals[931]: Æðelred[932] and Cnut[933] decree that he is to be secularised, to become an outlaw and abjure the realm, and do such penance as the Pope shall prescribe; and they extend this penalty to other grievous offences besides homicide. Eádweard the elder enacts that if a man in orders steal, fight, perjure himself or be unchaste, he shall be subject to the same penalties as the laity under the same circumstances would be, and to his canonical penance besides[934]. But the plainest evidence that the clergy, even including the most dignified of their body, were held to answer before the ordinary courts, is supplied by the many provisions in the laws as to the mode of conducting their trials[935]. It could not indeed be otherwise in a country where every offence was to be tried by the people themselves.
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But the most effectual mode of separating the clergy from the other members of the church yet remains to be considered. He that is permitted to contract marriage, to enjoy the inestimable blessings of a home, to connect himself with a family, and give the state dear pledges of his allegiance, can never cease to be a citizen of that polity in which his lot is cast. He can be no alien, no machine to be put in motion by foreign force. Accordingly, although the celibacy of the clergy is a mere point of discipline (and could therefore be dispensed with at once were it desired[936]), it has always been pertinaciously insisted upon by those whose interest it was to destroy the national feeling of the clergy in every country, and render them subservient to one centralising power. It is fitting that we enquire how far this was attempted in England, and how far the attempt succeeded.
The perilous position of the early Christians, and especially of the clergy, rendered it at least matter of prudence that they should not contract the obligation of family bonds which must prove a serious
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hindrance to the performance of their duties. It is therefore easily conceivable that marriage should in the first centuries have been discouraged among the members of this particular class. There was also a tendency among the eastern Christians to engraft upon the doctrines of the faith, those peculiar metaphysical notions which seem always to have characterized the oriental modes of thought. The antagonism of spirit and matter, the degraded—nay even diabolical[937]—nature of the latter, and the duty of emancipating the spiritual portion of our being from its trammels, were quite as prominent doctrines of some Christian communities, as of the Brahman or Buddhist. The holiness of the priest would, it was thought, be contaminated by his union with a wife; and thus from a combination of circumstances which in themselves had no necessary connexion, an opinion came to prevail that a state of celibacy was the proper one for the ministers of the sacraments. It was at first recommended, and then commanded, that those who wished to devote themselves to the especial service of the church, should not contract the bond of marriage. Even the married citizen who accepted orders was admonished to separate himself from the society of his wife: and both were taught that a life of continence for the future would be an acceptable offering in the sight of God. It seems unnecessary to
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dilate upon the fallacy of these views, or to point out the gross and degrading materialism on which they are ultimately based. The historian, while he laments, must to the best of his power record the aberrations of human intelligence, under his inevitable conditions of place and time.
It is uncertain at what period this restriction was first attempted to be enforced in the Western Church, but there are early councils which notice the existence of a strong feeling on the subject[938]. In the year 376 a Gallic synod excommunicated those who should refuse the ministrations of a priest on the ground of his marriage[939]. But this can only prove that at the time there were married priests, whether living in continence or not, and that certain persons were scandalized at them. I cannot admit, as some authors have done, that the Council intended to make such marriages legal; on the contrary, it seems to me that the intention of the canon is merely to assert the validity of the sacraments, however unworthy might be the person by whom they were administered[940].
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But restrictions which wound the natural feelings of men are vain: popes and councils may decree, but they cannot enforce obedience, and it seems to me that on this particular subject they never entirely succeeded in carrying out their views. All they did was to convert a holy and a blessed connexion into one of much lower character, and to throw the doors wide open to immorality and scandal. The efforts of Boniface in Germany were particularly directed to this point[941], and his biographer
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tells us on more than one occasion of his success in destroying the influence of married priests. But it may be questioned whether the same result attended the efforts of the Roman missionaries in England. It seems to me, on the contrary, that we have an almost unbroken chain of evidence to show that, in spite of the exhortations of the bishops,
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and the legislation of the witan, those at least of the clergy who were not bound to cœnobitical order, did contract marriage, and openly rear the families which were its issue. From Eddius we learn that Wilfrið bishop of York, one of the staunchest supporters of Romish views, had a son[942]; he does not indeed say that this son was born in wedlock, nor does any author directly mention Wilfrið’s marriage: but we may adopt this view of the matter, as the less scandalous of two alternatives, and as rendered probable by the absence of all accusations which might have been brought against the bishop on this score by any one of his numerous enemies. In a charter of emancipation we find among the witnesses, Ælfsige the priest and his son[943]: by another document a lady grants a church hereditarily to Wulfmǽr the priest and his offspring, as long as he shall have any in orders[944], where a succession of married clergymen is obviously contemplated. Again we read of Godwine at Worðig bishop Ælfsige’s son[945], and of the son of Oswald a presbyter[946]. Under Eádweard the Confessor we are told of Robert the deacon and his
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son-in-law Richard Fitzscrob[947], and of Gódríc a son of the king’s chaplain Gódman[948].
It may no doubt be argued that in some of these instances the children may have been the issue of marriages contracted before the father entered into orders; but it is obvious that this was not the case with all of them, nor is there any proof that any were so. On the other hand we have evidence of married priests which it would be difficult to reject. Florence speaks of the newly born son of a certain presbytera, or priest’s wife[949]: I have already cited a passage from Simeon of Durham which distinctly mentions a married presbyter[950], about the year 1045: and the History of Ely records the wife and family of an archipresbyter in that town[951]. Lastly we are told over and over again that one principal cause for the removal of the canons or prebendaries from the cathedrals and collegiate churches by Æðelwold and Oswald was the contravention of their rule by marriage.
The frequent allusion to this subject by the kings in various enactments, serve to show very clearly that the clergy would not submit to the restraint
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attempted to be enforced upon them. But we have a still more conclusive evidence in the words of an episcopal charge delivered by archbishop Ælfric. He says, “Beloved, we cannot now compel you by force to observe chastity, but we admonish you to observe it, as the ministers of Christ ought, and as did those holy men whom we have already mentioned, and who spent all their lives in chastity[952].” It is thus very clear that the clergy paid little regard to such admonishments, unsupported by secular penalties. In this, as perhaps in some other cases, the good sense and sound feeling of the nation struggled successfully against the authority of the Papal See. In fact, though spirituality were the pretext, a most abominable slavery to materialism lies at the root of all the grounds on which the Roman prelates founded the justification of their course. That they had ulterior objects in view may easily be surmised, though these may have been but dimly described and hesitatingly confessed, until Gregory the Seventh boldly and openly avowed them. Had the Roman church ventured to argue that the clergy ought to be separated entirely from the nation and the state, nay from humanity itself, for certain definite purposes and ends, it would at least have deserved the praise of candour; and much might have been alleged in favour of this view while the clergy were still strictly missionaries exposed to the perils and uncertainties of a daily struggle. But, in an absurd idolatry of
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what was miscalled chastity, to proscribe the noblest condition and some of the highest functions of man, was to set up a rule essentially false, and literally hold out a premium to immorality; and so the more reflecting even of the clergy themselves admitted[953]. Whatever may have been the desire of the prelates, we may be certain that not only in England, but generally throughout the North of Europe, the clergy did enter into quasi-marriages; and as late as the thirteenth century, the priests in Norway replied to Gregory the Ninth by setting up the fact of uninterrupted custom[954].
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In addition to the clergy who either in their conventual or parochial churches administered the rites of religion to their flocks, very considerable monastic establishments existed from an early period in England. It is true that not every church which our historians call monasterium was really a monastic foundation, but many of them undoubtedly were so; and it is likely that they supplied no small number of presbyters and bishops to the service of the church. The rule of St. Benedict was well established throughout the West long before Augustine set foot in Britain; and although monks are not necessarily clergymen, it is probable that many of the body in this country took holy orders. Like the clergy the monks were subject to the control of the bishop, and the abbots received consecration from the diocesan. Till a late period in fact, there is little reason to suppose that any English monastery succeeded in obtaining exemption from episcopal visitation: though on the other hand it is probable that monasteries founded by powerful and wealthy laymen did contrive practically to establish a considerable independence. This is the more conceivable, because we cannot doubt that a great difference did from the first exist between
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the rules adopted by various congregations of monks, or imposed upon them by their patrons and founders, until the time when greater familiarity with Benedict’s regulations, and the customs of celebrated houses, produced a more general conformity.
One of the most disputed questions in Anglosaxon history is that touching the revival of monkery by Dúnstán and his partizans. Its supposed connexion with the tragical story of Eádwig, and the dismemberment of England by Eádgár, have lent it some of the attractions of romance; and by the monastic chroniclers in general, it has very naturally been looked upon as the greatest point in the progressive record of our institutions. Connected as it is with some of the most violent prejudices of our nature, political, professional and personal, it has not only obtained a large share of attention from ecclesiastical historians of all ages, but has been discussed with great eagerness, not to say acrimony, by those who differed in opinion as to the wisdom and justice of the revival itself. Yet it does not appear to me to have been brought to the degree of clearness which we should have expected from the skill and learning of those who have undertaken its elucidation. Neither the share which Dúnstán took in the great revolution, nor the extent to which Æðelwold and Oswald succeeded in their plans, are yet satisfactorily settled; and great obscurity still hangs both over the manner and the effect of the change.
Few things in history, when carefully investigated,
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do really prove to have been done in a hurry. Sudden revolutions are much less common than we are apt to suppose, and fewer links than we imagine are wanting in the great chain of causes and effects. Could we place ourselves above the exaggerations of partizans, who hold it a point of honour to prove certain events to be indiscriminately right or indiscriminately wrong, we should probably find that the course of human affairs had been one steady and very gradual progression; the reputation of individual men would perhaps be shorn of part of its lustre; and though we should lose some of the satisfaction of hero-worship, we might more readily admit the constant action of a superintending providence, operating without caprice through very common and every-day channels. But it would have been too much to expect an impartial account of the events which led to the reformation of the Benedictine order in England; like Luther in the fifteenth, Dúnstán must be made the principal figure in the picture of the tenth century: throughout all great social struggles the protagonist stalks before us in gigantic stature,—glorious as an archangel, or terrible and hideous as Satan.
The writers who arose shortly after the triumph of the Reformation have revelled in this fruitful theme. The abuses of monachism,—not entirely forgotten at the beginning of the seventeenth century,—its undeniable faults, and the mischief it entails upon society,—judged with the exaggeration which unhappily seems inseparable from religious polemics, produced in every part of Europe a succession
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of violent and headlong attacks upon the institution and its patrons, which we can now more readily understand than excuse. But just as little can the calm, impartial judgment of the historian ratify the indiscriminate praise which was lavished by the Roman Catholics upon all whom the zeal of Protestants condemned, the misrepresentations of fact by which they attempted to fortify their opinions, or the eager credulity which they showed when any tale, however preposterous, appeared to support their particular objects. In later times the controversy has been renewed with greater decency of language, but not less zeal. The champion of protestantism is the Rev. Mr. Soames: Dr. Lingard takes up the gauntlet on behalf of his church. It is no intention of mine to balance their conflicting views as to the character and intentions of Dúnstán and his two celebrated coadjutors; these have been too deeply tinged by the ground-colour that lies beneath the outlines. But I propose to examine the facts upon which both parties seem agreed, though each may represent them variously in accordance with a favourite theory.
It admits of no doubt whatever that monachism, and monachism under the rule of St. Benedict, had been established at an early period in this country[955];
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but it is equally certain that the strict rule had very generally ceased to be maintained at the time
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when Dúnstán undertook its restoration. Many of the conventual churches had never been connected with monks at all; while among the various abbeys which the piety or avarice of individuals had founded, there were probably numerous instances where no rule had ever prevailed, but the caprice of the founders, who iure dominii imposed such regulations as their vanity suggested, or their industry gleaned from the established orders of Columba, Benedict, and other credited authorities[956]. The
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chapters, whatever their origin, had in process of time slid into that easy and serene state of secular canons, which we can still contemplate in the venerable precincts of cathedral closes. The celibacy of the clergy had not been maintained: and even in the collegiate churches the presbyter and prebendaries had permitted themselves to take wives, which could never have been contemplated even by those who would have looked with indulgence upon that connexion on the part of parish priests. Moreover in many places, wealthy ease, power, a dignified and somewhat irresponsible position had produced their natural effect upon the canons, some of whom were connected with the best families of the state; so that, in spite of all the deductions which must be made for exaggeration on the part of the monkish writers, we cannot deny that many instances of profligacy and worldly-mindedness
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did very probably disgrace the clerical profession. It would be strange indeed if what has taken place in every other age and country should have been unexampled only among the Anglosaxons of the ninth and tenth centuries, or that their monks and clergy should have enjoyed a monopoly of purity, holiness and devotion to duty[957].
As we have seen already, it was only towards the end of the eighth century that Chrodogang introduced a cœnobitical mode of life in the cathedral of his archdiocese. Long before this time the great majority of our churches had been founded; and among them some may possibly from the first have been served by clergymen resident in their own detached houses, and who merely met at stated hours to perform their duties in the choir, living at other times apart upon their præbenda or allowances from the general fund. But some of the cathedrals had been founded in connexion with abbeys; and it is probable that a majority of these great establishments were provided with some Rule of life, and demanded a cœnobitical though not strictly monastic habit. This is too frequently alluded to by the prelates of the seventh century, not to be admitted. But whatever may have been the
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details in different establishments, we may be certain that residence, temperance, soberness, chastity, and a strict attendance upon the divine services were required by the Rule of every society. Unfortunately these are restrictions and duties which experience proves to have been sometimes neglected; nor can we find any great improbability in the assertion of the Saxon Chronicle, that the canons of Winchester would hold no rule at all[958]; or in the accusations brought against them in the Annals of Winchester[959], and in Wulfstán’s Life of Æðelwold[960], of violating every one of their obligations. I do not see any reason to doubt the justice of the charge made against some of their body by the last-named author, of having deserted the wives they had taken, and living in open and scandalous disregard of morality as well as canonical restraint. Wulfstán very likely made the most of his facts, but it is to be remembered that he was an eye-witness; and it is improbable that he should have been indebted exclusively to his invention for charges so boldly made, so capable of being readily brought to the test, and containing in truth nothing
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repugnant to our experience of human nature. The canons of Winchester, many of whom were highly connected, wealthy beyond those of most other foundations, and established in the immediate vicinity of the royal court, may possibly have been more than ordinarily neglectful of their duties[961]; and they do appear in fact to have been treated in a much more summary way than the prebendaries of other cathedrals; yet perhaps not with strict justice, unless it can be shown that Winchester was ever a monastic establishment, which, previous to Æðelwold, I do not remember it to have been. Lingard who would have gratefully accepted any evidence against the canons in the other cathedrals, confines himself to Winchester; yet it strikes one as some confirmation of the general charge, even against their brethren at Worcester, that among the signatures to their charters so few are those of deacons and presbyters, till long after Oswald’s appointment to the see. This, although the silence of their adversaries allows us to acquit them of the irregularities laid to the charge of the canons at Winchester, may lead us to infer that they were
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not scrupulously diligent in fulfilling the duties of their calling.
We cannot feel the least surprise that Dúnstán desired to reform the state of the church. The peculiar circumstances of his early years, even the severe mental struggles which preceded and explain his adoption of the monastic career, were eminently calculated to train him for a Reviver; and Revival was the fashion of his day. Arnold earl of Flanders[962] had lent himself with the utmost zeal to the reform of the Benedictine abbeys in his territory, and they were the models selected for imitation, or as schools of instruction, by other lands, especially England so closely connected with Flanders by commerce and the alliances of the reigning houses[963].
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Yet with it all, Dúnstán does not appear to have taken a very prominent part in the proceedings of the friends of monachism,—certainly not the prominent part taken by Oswald or Æðelwold, the last of whom merited the title of the “Father of Monks,” by the attention he paid to their interests. In the archbishop’s own cathedral at Canterbury, the canons were left in undisturbed possession of their property and dignity, nor were monks introduced there by archbishop Ælfríc till some years after Dúnstán’s death. And even this measure, although supported by papal authority[964], was not final: it was only in the time of Lanfranc that the monks obtained secure possession of Christchurch. Dúnstán very probably continued throughout his life to be a favourer of the Order, and merited its gratitude by giving it valuable countenance and substantial protection against violence. But he was assuredly not himself a violent disturber, casting all things divine and human into confusion for the sake of a system of monkery. His recorded conduct shows nothing of the kind. I believe his monkish and very vulgar-minded panegyrists to have done his character and memory great wrong in this respect; and that they have measured the distinguished statesman by the narrow gauge of their own intelligence and desire. Troublous no doubt were his commencements; and in the days of his misery, while his mind yet tossed
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and struggled among the awful abysses of an unfathomed sea in the fierce conflicts of his ascetic retirement, where the broken heart sought rest and found it not, he may have given credence himself to what he considered supernatural visitations vouchsafed, and powers committed, to him. But when time had somewhat healed his wounds, when the first difficulties of his political life were surmounted, and he ruled England,—nominally as the minister of Eádgár, really as the leader of a very powerful party among the aristocracy,—there can be little doubt that the spirit of compromise, which always has been the secret of our public life, produced its necessary effect upon himself. Dúnstán was neither Richelieu nor Mazarin, but the servant of a king who wielded very limited powers; he had first attained his throne through a revolt, the pretext for which was his brother’s bad government, and its justification,—the consequent right of the people to depose him. Whatever may have been the archbishop’s private leaning, he appears to have conducted himself with great discretion, and to have very skilfully maintained the peace between the two embittered factions; he perhaps encouraged Eádgár to manifest his partiality for monachism by the construction or reform of abbeys; he probably supported Oswald and Æðelwold by his advice, and by preventing them from being illegally interfered with in the course of their lawful actions; but as prime minister of England, he maintained the peace as well for one as for the other, and there is no evidence that any measure
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of violence or spoliation took place by his connivance or consent. Neither the nation, nor the noble families whose scions found a comfortable provision and sufficient support in the prebends, would have looked calmly upon the unprovoked destruction of rights sanctioned by prescription. But there is indeed no reason to believe that violent measures were resorted to in any of the establishments, to bring about the changes desired. Even in Winchester, where more compulsion seems to have been used than anywhere else, the evicted canons were provided with pensions. I strongly suspect that in fact they did retain during their lives the prebends which could not legally be taken from them, though they might be expelled from the cathedral service and the collegiate buildings; and that this is what the monkish writers veil under the report that pensions were assigned them.
Dr. Lingard has very justly observed that Oswald, with all his zeal, made no change whatever in his cathedral of York, which archdiocese he at one time held together with Worcester; and that, generally speaking, the new monasteries were either reared upon perfectly new ground, or on ancient foundations then entirely reduced to ruins[965]. With regard to Worcester, he says:—“Of Oswald we
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are told that he introduced monks in the place of clergymen into seven churches within his bishopric; but there is reason to believe that some of the seven were new foundations, and that in some of the others the change was effected with the full consent of the canons themselves. In his cathedral he succeeded by the following artifice. Having erected in its vicinity a new church to the honour of the Virgin Mary, he entrusted it to the care of a community of monks, and frequented it himself for the solemn celebration of mass. The presence of the bishop attracted that of the people; the ancient clergy saw their church gradually abandoned; and after some delay, Wensine, their dean, a man advanced in years and of unblemished character, took the monastic habit, and was advanced three years later to the office of prior. The influence of his example and the honour of his promotion, held out a strong temptation to his brethren; till at last the number of canons was so diminished by repeated desertions, that the most wealthy of the churches of Mercia became without dispute or violence, by the very act of its old possessors, a monastery of Benedictine monks[966]. In what manner Oswald proceeded with the other churches we are ignorant; but in 971 he became archbishop of York, and though he held that high dignity during twenty years, we do not read that he introduced a single colony of monks or changed
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the constitution of a single clerical establishment, within the diocese. The reason is unknown.”
It might not unfairly be suggested either that the rights of the canons were too well established to be shaken, or that experience had changed his own mind as to the necessity of the alteration. High station, active engagement with the details of business, increasing age, and a natural mutual respect which grows with better acquaintance, may have convinced Oswald that his youthful zeal had a little outrun discretion, and that the canons in his province and diocese were not so utterly devoid of claims to consideration as he once had imagined in his reforming fervour. But the reader of Anglosaxon history will not fail to have observed that the measured and in general fair tone of Dr. Lingard differs very widely from that of early monkish chroniclers, and that he himself attributes to Oswald a much less active interference than is asserted by many protestant historians. That he is right I do not for a moment doubt; for not only are the accounts of Oswald’s biographers inconsistent with one another, and improbable, but we have very strong evidence that the eviction of the canons from Worcester was not completed in Oswald’s lifetime. We possess no fewer than seventy-eight charters granted by his chapter, and these comprise several signed in 990 and 991, the years immediately preceding that in which he died[967]: these charters are signed in part by presbyters
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and deacons, in part by clerics, and there is but one signature of a monk[968], though there are at least six clerici who subscribe. Although from an examination of the charters I entertain no doubt that several, if............