Abstract
In the beginning was the word of the king. “Rex episcopatum dedit” (The king gave the bishopric) or a similar phrase (“Sciatis me dedisse; concessisse; dedisse et concessisse”) occurs as the familiar formula found in the chronicles and charters, and every monarch from William I to John took advantage of the opportunity to improve his position by lining up episcopal support.1 “To give” a man a bishopric appears to have been a general way of speaking that expressed the right of the king to control appointments to the higher clergy. It seems not to have implied that the cathedral was a proprietary church. The king did not own it, nor could he make a man a bishop by himself. Nor, in this case, does the right to give convey the right to take back. Nevertheless, the act of giving does imply that what was given already belonged to the giver. It creates a debt and thereby adds a measure of influence over the receiver.2 In the case of Walcher at Durham in 1072 and his successor, William of St. Calais, in 1081, Symeon refers to them as having been “elected by the king himself.” Even if no more than a rhetorical device, the description exposes the truth of the matter.3 Pope Gregory VII also used the phrase donum episcopatus to signify the transfer of ecclesiastical office. It is an indication of the development of his views on the relation of regnum and sacerdotium that early in his pontificate he was willing to accept the donum from the king if it was made in canonical fashion, whereas later, after the hardening of the rules on lay investiture at the Lenten synod in 1075, he was moved to condemn categorically conferment by a layman.
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Notes
Dare was in general use as in matrimonium dare, in manu dare. A cluster of dedits occurs in Henry of Huntingdon’s History where he records the king’s appointments to Canterbury, Lincoln, London, Bath, Rochester, Chichester, and Worcester. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, Diana Greenway, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 416–417, 470–473, 476–478. A note on the legal implications of the use of the word dare is in
J. Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 72–84, 148–153,211–215.
On the question of the proprietary church and the greater attention given to the legal implications of patronage, see Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 292–311, 918 et seq.
“Ab ipso rege electus,” Symeon of Durham, Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius hoc est Dunelmensis ecclesie, David Rollason, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 222–225.
The Register of Pope Gregory VII: 1073–1085, H.E.J. Cowdrey, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 1.21, 1.35; and later prohibitions at 3.10, 4.22, 7.14a. For comment on the practice,
see H. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII: 1073–1085 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 403–410.
Anselm could write to Hugh, archbishop of Lyon, that “the king gave me the archbishopric,” Richard Southern, St. Anselm, a Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 250. Archbishop Baldwin, according to Gervase, gave the bishopric of Rochester to his clerk, Gilbert Glanvil. Gervase of Canterbury, The Historical Works, William Stubbs, ed., 2 vols. (London: 1879–1880), RS-73, I, p. 312. “After the death of Bishop Gaudry [of Laon], the clergy began to call upon the king for the election of another. Without any election, the king gave them a certain dean of Orléans.”
Self and Society in Medieval France, J. Benton, ed. (New York: Harper, 1970), pp. 197–198. Other terms frequently used were
electus est (The Chronicle of John of Worcester, R.R. Darlington, P. McGurk, and Jennifer Bray, eds., vols. II and III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995–1998), pp. 52–53), suscepit (OV, VI, pp. 428–429), “factus est” (ibid., pp. 392–393), “commissus est” (ibid., pp. 442–443), “constituit” (JW III, pp. 14–15), “prefecit” (ibid., pp.118–119), “investiuit” (ibid. pp. 102–103).
English Historical Documents. David Douglas et al., eds., vol. I: 500–1042, vol. II: 1042–1189, vol. III: 1189–1327 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968–1981) II, pp. 769–770;
and Annals of Burton in Annales Monastici, H.R. Luard, ed. (London: 1864–1869), RS-36, I, p. 211.
W.L. Warren, Henry II (London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), pp. 535–536.
The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, dean of London, William Stubbs, ed., 2 vols. (London: 1876), RS-68, I, pp. 367–368.
Raymonde Foreville, L’église et la royauté en Angleterre sous Henri II Plantagenêt (Paris: 1943), p. 370.
H.E.J. Cowdrey, Lanfranc, Scholar, Monk, and Archbishop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 37.
C.R. Cheney, Pope Innocent and England, Päpste und Papsttum, Bd. 9 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976), p. 127.
Gilbert Foliot and His Letters, Adrian Morey and C.N.L. Brooke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 109. OV, VI, pp. 535–536.
Warren, Henry II, p. 433. The Letters of John of Salisbury, W.J. Millor, H.E. Butler, and C.N.L. Brooke, eds., 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979–1986), II, #128, p. 222.
H.G. Richardson and George O. Sayles, The Governance of Medieval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh: University Press, 1963), pp. 339–340.
In the mid-eleventh century, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida laid out the proper sequence of election by clergy and people, approval by the archbishop, and consecration by the bishops of the province, but deplored the fact that in his time the order had been turned upside down so that bishops were chosen by the king, with the consent of the nobles, clergy, people, and metropolitan coming as an afterthought, Adversus Simoniacos, printed in The Crisis of Church and State: 1050–1300, Brian Tierney, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall, 1964), p. 40.
JSL II, # 311. Jacques Paul, L’Eglise et la Culture en Occident, Nouvelle Clio 15, 2 vols. (Paris: PUF, 1986), p. 439.
Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, Joseph Alberigo et al., eds. (Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose, 1973), p. 190, canon 3. For a model form of electoral procedure under papal auspices see the bull of Eugenius III to the chapter at Coutances in February 1146
in Papsturkunden in Frankreich, Bd. II, Normandie, Johannes Ramackers, ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1937), #40.
COD, p. 203, canon 28. The Lateran decrees that arrived in England were often imperfect texts, which left many uncertainties and ambiguities for those who applied them. See R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 266, n. 36. The petition of the bishops is printed in
Early Charters of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, Marion Gibbs, ed., Camden Society, 3d series 58 (London: RHS, 1939), #181.
COD, pp. 246–247, canons 24–25. For Gratian, the answer appeared to be that the clergy elected, laymen were excluded, and the people consented (Dist. 62–63). Rufinus attempted to deal with the problem of definition about 1157, for which see Robert Benson, The Bishop-Elect, pp. 60–64. Innocent III included assensus principis among the important parts of the electoral process (ibid. p. 346, n. 13). By his time, the available methods were by ballot (per scrutinium), which was the most usual, or by compromise, or by inspiration. But, then, it could be argued that all results by ballot were had by compromise, and that since God was a party to the action, the choice of any successful candidate was inspired. The actual vote in the chapter brings up a host of other problems relating to the exact process by which the voting was done and the way the votes were weighed or counted. The ambiguity of “maior et sanior pars” is apparent in that “maior” might mean greater in number, greater in age, or even greater in importance; while “sanior” implied better judgement, or those who were more intelligent, or more prudent, or more reasonable, or also older in age or senior in appointment. Gregory VII, in a letter of instruction on the election of a successor to the archbishop of Reims in December 1080, urged the count of Roucy to support the candidate who was to be elected “by the wiser counsel of the better part of the clergy” with the consent of the papal legate (“illumque archiepiscopum quem saniori consilio pars cleri melior cum consensu predicti legati nostri, Hugonis videlicet episcopi Diensis, illi sedi elegerit, modis omnibus adiuvare,” Register 8.18); while in another letter of the same date to the suffragan bishops of Reims, he was ready to approve an election made by “the better and more religious part of the clergy and people” with the consent of his vicar (“nos enim earn electionem, quam pars cleri et populi melior et religiosior consentiente predicto nostro vicario fecerit, deo favente firmantes apostolica auctoritate roboramus,” Register 8.19). Translations by Cowdrey, Register. It was a standard phrase, in use in monastic establishments as well. Alexander III wrote to Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, and others, in the 1170s with regard to the abbot of Malmesbury who had distributed property of the abbey without the common consent of the chapter or (vel) the maior et sanior pars, Decretales ineditae saeculi XII, from the papers of the late Walther Holtzmann, Stanley Chodorow and Charles Duggan, eds. (Città del Vaticano: 1982), #50, pp. 91–92. Each of the definitions, of course, raises its own problems in meaning.
See the discussion by Jean Gaudemet, “Unanimité et majorité. Observations sur quelques études récentes,” La société ecclésiastique dans l’occident médiéval (London: Variorum, 1980);
and Klaus Ganzer, Unanimitas, maioritas, pars sanior. Zur repräsentativen Willensbildung von Gemeinschaften in der kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000);
and the comments in Andreas Thier, Hierarchie und Autonomie, Regelungstraditionen der Bischofsbestellung in der Geschichte des kirchlichen Wahlrechts bis 1140 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2011), pp. 164ff.
The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, Frank Barlow, ed. (London: RHS, 1939), pp. xix–xx, and p. 209.
Herbert paid 1,000 marks for his father to have Winchester abbey and himself the see at Thetford, Frank Barlow, The English Church: 1000–1066. A Constitutional History (London: 1963; 2d ed. 1979), p. 68. Ranulf Flambard paid k1,000
(William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, M. Winterbottom, ed., 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 134). Geoffrey: £300 (Gallia Christiana in provincias ecclesiasticas distributa … tome XI: Rouen (Paris: V. Palme, 1874), Inst. cl. 219).
Walter Map, Courtiers’ Trifles, M.R. James, C.N.L. Brooke, and R.A.B. Mynors, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 68–69.
Hugh ofCoventry (Roger of Howden, s.a. 1195). Hugh of Lincoln (ibid.). Geoffrey of York (ibid. s.a. 1189). Walter de Gray (Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History, H.G. Hewlett, ed., 3 vols. (London: 1886–1889), RS-84, II, pp 160–161).
The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes of the Time of King Richard the First, John T. Appleby, ed. (London: Nelson, 1963), pp. 7–9.
G.V. Scammell, Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 49–53.
The Autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis, H.E. Butler, ed. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937), p. 134.
The legal and constitutional grounds are reviewed by K. Pennington, Popes and Bishops. The Papal Monarchy in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), p. 4 et seq.
Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I: 1066–1087, David Bates, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), #129. David Douglas et al., eds., vol. I: 500–1042, vol. II: 1042–1189, vol. III: 1189–1327 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968–1981), II, p. 805.
Frank Barlow, William Rufus (London: Methuen, 1983), p. 329.
“Misit ergo ad nos episcopos suos qui monerent ut peticionem nostram coram omnibus faceremus,” The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anne J. Duggan, ed., 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), II, #300, p. 1270.
Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, Martin Rule, ed., RS-81 (London: 1884), p. 53.
ALL, #42, 120. See J.E.A. Jolliffe, Angevin Kingship (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1963), pp. 113–118.
Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 106–108.
“Preter hoc tremendum regie maiestatis titulamus imperium,” Leges Henrici Primi, L.J. Downer, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 97 (6, 2a). “In qua proceres Anglie, simul et Norrnannie, cum timore et tremore affuerunt,” HH, pp. 454–455.
Pierre Chaplais, “William of Saint-Calais and the Domesday Survey,” in Domesday Studies, J.C. Holt, ed. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987), pp. 65–77.
Edward A. Freeman, The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry I, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1882), I, p. 95.
Compare the meanings in OV, I, Index verborum, p. 287. For episcopium as the bishop’s property, see Pierre Toubert, Les Structures du Latium médiéval, 2 vols. (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1973), p. 807 et seq.
R.W. Southern, St. Anselm and His Biographer. A Study of Monastic Life and Thought: 1059–c.1130 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), p. 167.
OV, VI, pp. 98, 178–182, 224. C.W. Hollister, “The Campaign of 1102 against Robert de Bellême,” Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, Christopher Harper-Bill, et al., eds. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989), pp. 193–202.
J.C. Holt, The Northerners. A Study in the Reign of King John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 24–25.
A rough sampling of recalcitrant barons and their families in England and in Normandy under Henry I supports this conclusion. “To describe Henry’s regime as a “reign of terror’ is to misunderstand it profoundly. His goal was not to destroy his nobles or take vengeance on them but to mold them into trustworthy participants in his regime.” C.W. Hollister, Henry I (New Haven: Yale, 2001), p. 334.
Dialogus de Scaccario et constitutio domus regis, Charles Johnson, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950; 2d ed., Emilie Amt and S.D. Church, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 77.
Pollock and Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols. (Rp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), II, pp. 513–515.
Kate Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, 2 vols. (London: 1887; Rp. Philadelphia: Burt Franklin, 1969), II, pp. 166–167. On the use of exile abroad,
see David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London: Longman, 1982), pp. 166–167, and the comments in
S.D.B. Brown, “Leave-Taking: Lordship, and Mobility in England and Normandy in the Twelfth Century,” History 79 (1994): 199–215. The sanction imposed, as in exile, was not simply punishment, but the means to restore the relationship that had existed previously. The honor, that is, the reputation of the injured party had to be satisfied. More recent discussions are by Leonie Hicks: “Exclusion as Exile. Spiritual Punishment and Physical Illness in Normandy c. 1050–1300,” pp. 145–158; Michael Staunton, “Exile in the Lives of Anselm and Thomas Becket,” pp. 159–180; and Lynsey Robertson, “Exile in the Life and Correspondence of John of Salisbury,” pp. 181–198,
in Exile in the Middle Ages, Laura Napran and Elisabeth van Houts, eds. (Leeds: University Press, 2002).
See also M. Strickland, “Reconciliation or Humiliation? La suppression de la rebellion aristocratique dans les royaumes anglo-normand et angevin,” Images de la contestation du pouvoir dans le monde normand Xe-XVIIIe siècle (Caen: Presses Universitaires, 2007), pp. 65–67.
“He [Henry I] did at length give up the investitures because of the prohibition and anathema of the Roman church, a concession which cost him little or nothing, a little, perhaps, of his royal dignity, but nothing of his power to enthrone anyone he pleased.” Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York: 1066–1127, Charles Johnson, C.N.L. Brooke, M. Winterbottom, and M. Brett, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 14.
The pledge made in Stephen’s coronation charter in April 1136 of free elections and non-interference sede vacante was tantamount to giving up two of the basic means he had to control his bishops. It was a poor start for a new king, but it appears to have been more promise than practice. See Margaret Howell, Regalian Right in Medieval England (London: University of London, 1962), pp. 29–32.
Christopher Holdsworth, “The Church,” in The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign, Edmund King, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), chapter 6, especially pp. 212–213.
Stephen Marritt, “King Stephen and the Bishops,” Anglo-Norman Studies 21 (2002): 129–144, makes the case for an active episcopate, but adds little that is new.
Davis, King Stephen, pp. 28–33. Jim Bradbury, Stephen and Matilda. The Civil War of 1139–1153 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1996), pp. 48–55.
K. Yoshitake, “The Arrest of the Bishops in 1139 and Its Consequences,” Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988): 97–114.
Keith J. Stringer, The Reign of Stephen (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 62–65. Barlow, The English Church: 1066–1154, pp. 305–307.
Liber Eliensis, appendix E, pp. 433–436. For the chronology and Nigel’s itinerary, see J.H. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville. A Study of the Anarchy (London: Longmans, Green, 1892), appendix Z, pp. 411–413; Regesta III, #267; Liber Eliensis, pp. 326–329
David Knowles, The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 9–12.
Cf. Christopher R. Cheney, From Becket to Langton. English Church Government: 1170–1213 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), p. 107,
and C. Harper-Bill, “John and the Church of Rome,” in Henry II. New Interpretations, Christopher Harper-Bill and Nicholas Vincent, eds. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2007), pp. 289–315.
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Crosby, E.U. (2013). Principles of Authority. In: The King’s Bishops. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352125_3
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