Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Rolls. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.

1858—.)

7. First Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Matters affecting the Church in Wales. Ordered to be printed 7th August, 1914. (London: Wymans and Sons Ltd.)

And other works.

THE history of the Convocation of Canterbury in the mediaeval period has suffered from the circumstances that it has almost always been investigated in the interest of some special theory or with a view to the overthrow of an ecclesiastical opponent. By far the greatest book on the subject is Wake's State of the Church, published in 1703, when its author was Dean of Exeter. This was a vigorous and crushing reply to Atterbury's Rights, Powers and Privileges of an English Convocation. Its erudition is immense; but every page is controversial, and it fails to trace with exactitude the gradual development of the constitution, the functions and the designations of the institution with which it deals. A like failure mars to a considerable extent more recent books on the subject, which were called forth by the revival of Convocation in the last century, even though the writers had Wake and Wilkins to supply them with an abundance of original documents. Lawyers and divines offered opposite views on several matters of practical moment, and even to-day the question is raised whether Convocation is or is not the same thing as the Provincial Synod.

The evidence given in July 1914 before the Select Committee on the Church in Wales shewed that these topics have already more than an academical interest; and the time cannot be far distant when serious problems will come up for solution, and it will be of great importance to have a just view of this department of the constitutional history of the Church of England. The present essay is an attempt to survey the field of inquiry. from the end of the Twelfth

century to the beginning of the Sixteenth. It suffers from several obvious limitations, such as the absence of any reference to the parallel development of the Northern Convocation, and the necessity of resting for the most part on printed materials without verification from the original documents. But it claims to be uncontroversial, while it silently corrects a good many statements and conclusions which are commonly current. The writer would fain hope that it may challenge the attention of some professed historian, who will treat the subject with the exact and complete investigation which its importance deserves.

The first occasion on which the term Provincial Council seems to occur in our English historians is perhaps also the first occasion on which such a council was ever held. For the archbishops of Canterbury had claimed the right of summoning the whole of the bishops of England to attend their Councils, which accordingly had been national and not merely provincial. But the archbishops of York had been unwilling and even defiant subjects, and the two provinces had drifted further and further apart. In 1175 Archbishop Richard celebrated his council at Westminster on May 18. Almost all the suffragans of Canterbury were present: certain abbots were also in attendance. The two kings, Henry II and his son, were present on one day at least. William of Newburgh, writing c. 1200, speaks of it as provinciale concilium Lundoniis celebratum.'1 Benedictus Abbas gives the statutes which were put forth and the archbishop's preliminary statement in which the assembly is spoken of as a sacred synod (sacrosancta synodus), the decrees of which must be observed by all members of the province (universis provincialibus nostris).a

On Sept. 19, 1200, Hubert Walter held a council at Westminster, at which bishops, abbots and priors attended,

1 Chronicles of Stephen, etc., i 203.

2 Bened. i 84: Wilkins, Conc. i 476. The council held at Westminster in 1190 by the legate William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, is called concilium provinciale by Roger de Wendover (i 188); but Ralph de Diceto, whom he is following, calls it regionale concilium (ii 85).

and decrees were put forth. A prohibition issued by Geoffrey fitz Peter, the justiciar, was disregarded. That this was intended to be a national, not a provincial council, may be gathered from the remark of Ralph de Diceto on the absence of the Archbishop of York, although he was in England at the time.1

In 1207, while the see of Canterbury was vacant after Hubert Walter's death, King John assembled the bishops and abbots of the kingdom at London, and demanded that they should grant an aid from the revenues of parsons and beneficed clerks. This they refused, and the refusal was repeated with indignation later at Oxford, such a grant being declared to be wholly without precedent.2 The king thereupon obtained a thirteenth of all chattels from the laity, and wrote to the archdeacons to bring the clergy to follow this good example. Though these were not, properly speaking, ecclesiastical councils at all, the incident is of importance to our inquiry, as shewing that the lower clergy had not yet come to be consulted in reference to taxation, which indeed they had escaped as a rule; and also as illustrating the position of the archdeacons as their natural representatives.

Passing over councils held by Stephen Langton on his arrival in England, in 1213 and 1214, which were largely concerned with the recovery of monies confiscated during the Interdict, we come to the council held at Oxford, April 17, 1222. Walter of Coventry speaks of this as a provincial council, attended by bishops and abbots.3 Decrees were passed, largely based on the canons of the Lateran

1 'Archiepiscopus Eboracensis concilio non interfuit, cum esset in Anglia; nec qui eius allegaret absentiam; cum iuxta priscorum consuetudinem ad vocationes Cantuariensis concilio teneretur interesse, vel iustam absentiae suae causam allegare,' Ra. de Dic. ii 169 see Wilkins, Conc. i 505 for the decrees.

• 'Unanimiter responderunt Anglicanam ecclesiam nullo modo sustinere posse, quod ab omnibus saeculis prius fuit inauditum,' Ann. Waverl. p. 258: see also Stubbs, Const. Hist. i (ed. 5) 620.

3 Wilkins, Conc. i 585-597. Walt. de Cov. ii 251: Celebratum est concilium provinciale apud Oxoniam in conventuali ecclesia de Oseneya.'

Council; and an apostate deacon was degraded, and handed over to the lay court and burned.

The year 1226 is remarkable for three councils, which were summoned to deal with demands made by the pope and by the king on the revenues of the Church. It is fortunate for us that the dean and chapter of Salisbury registered the whole series of writs directed to them, as well as an account of their action in respect of them; so that we are able to see who were summoned, and with what kind of instructions the proctors of the chapter appeared. We can thus trace an important advance in the representation of the clergy.1

Pope Honorius III, by a bull dated Jan. 28, 1225, had made the monstrous demand that a prebend in every cathedral and collegiate church should be reserved for papal uses, and an equivalent revenue provided from the estates of bishops and monasteries. The demand had been indignantly rejected by the French clergy at a great council held at Bourges on November 20. To that council proctors of the cathedral chapters had come; but the papal nuncio, who was troubled at their appearance, quickly gave them leave to go home. They insisted however that they were the parties most nearly concerned. In the end the nuncio agreed to say no more of the business, until an answer had been given by England and by Spain.

Archbishop Stephen Langton directed the Bishop of London to summon the bishops, deans, archdeacons, abbots and conventual priors of the province to meet in London on January 7, 1226, in order to consider their reply to the pope's demand. This is the first known instance of the process, which still obtains to-day, whereby the Bishop of London, as Dean of the Province,2 conveys 1 See the so-called Register of St. Osmund (Rolls Series ') ii 45 ff: 'Citatio episcoporum, abbatum et decanorum ad concilium in ecclesia beati Pauli London.' The heading in Wilkins, Conc. i 602,' mandatum de convocatione,' is misleading.

The title is found in 1191, in a letter of the bishops to Callixtus III regarding the election to Canterbury: domini Londoniensis, qui decanatum obtinet inter suffraganeos' (Wilkins, Conc. i 494). So again (ib. 495) in King Richard's letter to the Bishop of London

the archbishop's mandate to the bishops. When this assembly met at St. Paul's, the pope's bull was read, but nothing was done, as the archbishop and some of the bishops were absent at Marlborough in attendance on the king who was sick. Accordingly a fresh citation was issued in Lent. It reached the dean and chapter of Salisbury in the form of a writ from Richard Poore their bishop, reciting a writ of the Bishop of London, which in turn recited the archbishop's mandate to the following effect:

'Stephen, etc., to Eustace Bishop of London, greeting in the Lord. We command you that according to the duty of your office you cause to be summoned all bishops, abbots not exempted by us, and all priors, and all deans of cathedral and prebendal churches, and all archdeacons; and that you signify to each of the chapters that they send proctors, as well of cathedral as of prebendal churches, and of monasteries and other religious houses; strictly enjoining upon them, in virtue of obedience and under pain of suspension, to be present at a council at London to be held on the Sunday after Easter on which Misericordia Domini is sung [2 aft. Easter, 3 May 1226]; and that you signify to all the aforesaid that they deliberate in the mean time, and come with full instructions to respond to the pope's nuncio regarding the request which he has made on the pope's behalf.' 1

That this was a national council appears from a note in the Salisbury register, which states that Richard Marsh, Bishop of Durham, died on his way to it at Peterborough.2 Salisbury was concerned with this event, because its own ('Cantuariensis ecclesiae decano'), leading to the election of Hubert Walter in 1193. Earlier than this, if we may accept the account of William of Canterbury (Vita S. Thomae, Materials, i 34), we have a curious reference to the title. When Thomas persisted in entering the Court at Northampton in 1164 carrying his cross himself, the bishops were shocked at the challenge implied. The Bishop of Hereford asked to carry it for him, but was refused: then the Bishop of London made the same demand, 'asserens hoc sibi competere, tamquam Cantuariensis ecclesiae decano.'

1

1 Reg. Osm. ii 46 f.: 'ut intersint London. concilio.' The exempt abbots are declared to be those of St. Albans, Westminster, St. Edmund's, and St. Augustine's, Canterbury.

2 Ibid. 54.