Parish Priests and Their People in the Middle Ages in England Part 50

[224] Gravely.

[225] Both.

[226] Hence.

[227] Maiden.

[228] This was first ordered by Pope Honorius III. in 1217.

[229] The churchyard was frequently called the "sanctuary."

[230] Ratified.

[231] In baptism.

[232] Locked.

[233] There are various forms on record of this "general sentence of excommunication." Two are given at pp. 86 and 119 of the "York Manual"

(Surtees Society).

[234] Upon.

[235] Go.

[236] See plate opposite.

[237] Printed by the Early English Text Society.

[238] Chasuble.

[239] Believe.

[240] Another version says, "Don't wait for the priest to ask for the ma.s.s penny, but go up and offer, though there is no obligation; it will make your chattle increase in your coffer."

[241] From another version of the book we extract the following sentence, which contains an expression of the doctrine of the Eucharist--

Every day thou mayest see The same body that died for thee, Tent[A] if thou wilt take, In figure and in form of bread, That Jesus dealt ere He were dead, For His disciples' sake.

[A] Heed.

[242] Abroad.

[243] Dead.

[244] Give utterance to.

[245] Also.

[246] "The Epic of the Fall of Man" (S. H. Gurteen), 1896. The translation seems to be as close as may be, consistently with an intelligible expression of the thoughts of the original and a poetical form.

[247] "Political, Religious, and Love Poems," Furnival (Early English Text Society), pp. 111, 151, 162.

[248] Ransom.

[249] Song of Solomon, ii. 5, 8.

[250] Whence his pain.

[251] Prosperity.

[252] It is easy to quote a long list of quasi-married bishops and dignitaries of this period. The last two bishops of Elmham, Stigand and Ethelmar, appointed by the saintly and ascetic Edward the Confessor, were married men; so was Herbert, the first bishop of the same see (removed to Norwich), appointed by the Conqueror, and perhaps the second William (1086), and Edward (1121). Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln (1094), had a son Simon, whom he made Dean of that Cathedral. Roger of Salisbury (1107) was married. Robert Lymesey, of Chester (1086-1117), left a daughter settled with her husband, Noel, on the see lands near Eccleshall; and Hugh, Dean of Derby in this episcopate, was married. Roger of Lichfield (1121) was a married man; he put his son Richard into the Archdeaconry of Coventry, and he was afterwards promoted to the see (1161). Three Bishops of Durham were married men, viz. Ralph Flambard (1099), Geoffrey Rufus (1133), and the famous Hugh Puiset (1153); the wife of the latter was a lady of the Percy family. Several Archbishops of York were the sons of married clergymen.

There is an extant letter from Thomas, the first Norman Archbishop of York, in which he complains that his canons were married men. The Canons of Durham turned out by Bishop William of S. Carilef (1081) were all married men, so were some of those turned out of Rochester Cathedral by Bishop Gundulf; one of them, aegelric, who had retired to the Benefice of Chatham, on his wife's death obtained her burial by the monks of the Cathedral in the most honourable manner (S.P.C.K., "Rochester," p. 50).

[253] At a visitation of Lincoln Cathedral by Bishop Bokingham, 1363-1398, it appeared that almost all the cathedral clergy disobeyed the canons (S.P.C.K., "Lincoln," p. 84). A statute of the Chapter of Bath and Wells, in 1323, forbade any canon who had a concubine [wife] before his appointment to meet her except in the presence of discreet witnesses. So late as 1520 the Vicar-General had occasion to admonish the dean to correct one of the canons for keeping a concubine [wife] in his house of residence. The use of the ugly word by which the canons described these persons was not indefensible; the old laws of Imperial Rome recognized a kind of marriage with an inferior wife as respectable, it went so far at one time as to require unmarried proconsuls to take such a wife with them to their province, and this was not to prevent them from making afterwards a legal marriage. For example, St. Helena was first the concubine of Constantius, and he afterwards raised her to the higher dignity of his wife, and Constantine, their son, raised her to the dignity of empress.

[254] In 1221 and the following years, the pope issued mandates to the English bishops bidding them deprive married clerks ("Papal Letters," vol.

i. pp. 79, 84, 86, 90, Rolls Series).

[255] See also Roger of Wendover under 1225, ii. 287, Rolls Series.

[256] This is an allusion to another canon which made it illegal for a man to separate from his wife in order to enter into a religious order requiring a vow of celibacy, without his wife's consent.

[257] One explanation of the frequent repet.i.tion of these canons by successive synods is that in those early days it was not a matter of course that a law once made stood good until repealed; rather, on the contrary, that a law lapsed by desuetude, and needed to be re-enacted from time to time to keep it in vigour. The early kings renewed their predecessors' concessions; grantees sought the confirmation of charters from the heir of the original grantor; and laws of Parliament were often pa.s.sed again by subsequent Parliaments. So a new archbishop began his reign by calling the provincial synod together and issuing a set of provincial const.i.tutions, repeating former canons, which it was still necessary to keep in active use.

[258] In the debates of the Twenty-fourth Session of the Council of Trent, in the autumn of 1563, one patriarch declared that the proposed decree annulling clandestine marriages was directly opposed to the law of G.o.d, and that he would resist it at the peril of his life (Bishop of Bristol, "On what are the Papal Claims founded?"--S.P.C.K.).

[259] Hook's "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," vi. 317.

[260] It is very significant that after the Reformation legislation had legalized clerical marriages, the wives of the bishops did not openly live in their palaces with them, but in houses of their own. It was a survival of the custom that ecclesiastics might have wives, but that their wives might not be introduced into society.

[261] "Harl.," 862, p. 221. A more important example is that of Margaret Countess of Flanders, who married a deacon, and subsequently repudiated him and married again, with the result of a disputed succession (Matthew Paris, under 1254 A.D., v. 435, Rolls Series).

[262] "Transactions of the Gloucester Archaeol. Society," 1893. Paper on "Newnham," by R. I. Kerr.

[263] J. Raine, Preface to "Archbishop Gray's Register."

[264] See other curious instances of it in the "Papal Letters," Rolls Series, vol. i. pp. 239, 243.

[265] "Letters of Henry III.," Rolls Series.

[266] The Bishop of Oxford doubts whether the sons of such marriages after the twelfth century would be ordained without a dispensation.

[267] MS. 5824, f. 5. British Museum.

[268] Pope Clement VI., in 1398, sent to Bishop Grandisson of Exeter at his request a dispensation for fifty priests and scholars, by name, to receive holy orders and hold benefices. Thirty are cla.s.sed as illegitimate, both parents being single persons; ten as having one parent a married person; ten as born of presbyters or persons in holy orders ("Grandisson's Register," Hingeston-Randolph, part i. p. 147).

[269] "Papal Letters," vol. i. p. 113.