Among the eaptives at Tenchebrai was Edgar Athc^ ling, wh^ some shght similarity of character had at^ tached to Robert's fortune. He was personally brare' : but so mean i^ere his talents, that Henry, like his fa- ther, could venture to assume the appearance of mag- nanimity towards him. He gave turn his liberty and a small pension ; and the last male of the line of Cef« die thus vanishes from history. Henry soon began to repent of his liberality towards his nephew ; and he sent, in 1108, a trusty messenger to the castle of Helie de St. Ssien, to get possession of him. Helie was absent at the time ; but his servants conveyed away the sleeping child, and placed him in safety ; and Helie, on his return, abandoned his prop- erty, and went with his helpless charge from court to oourt. When William grew up^ and displayed talents and virtues worthy of his race, he interested various princes in his favonr. Louis le Gros, king of France, the feudal superior of Normandy, a brave and gener- 0CK3 prince, aware of the danger of letting the King of England become too powerful, joined with the Counta of Anjou and Flanders in supporting the cause of William ; and a petty, indecisive war was kept up ftw some years. Henry detached the Count of Anjou from the confederacy, by contracting his eldest son to the count's daughter ; and the death of the Count of Flao^ ders, who was slain in a skirmish near Eu, farther weakened the cause of younpr William. King Louis tried to engage the church m his favour, by taking him to a council at Rheims m 1119, over which Pop© CaUxtus II. personally presided; but the arts and the gifts of Henry easily overcame the just claims of his nephewy and shortly after a peace was concluded be- tween him and the King of France. But fortune soon offered another chance to yoimg WiUiam. King Henry, when his eldest son, also na- med William, fiad attained his eighteenth year, took him over to Normandy hi 1130, to have him recogt^ sed as his successor. On their return from tb« pon Digitized by CjOOQIC 1118-1127.] DEATH OF PRINCE WILLIAM. 127 of Barfleur, the king's ship, having a fair wind, was soon out of sight ; but that of the prince, having been detained by an accident, the sailors and their captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephen, got drunk, and when they set sail they ran the ship on a rock, where she foundered. The prince had got into the boat^ and was now clear of the vessel and out of danger, when he heard the cries of the Countess of Perche, his natural sister. He made the seamen put back to save her; but when the boat approached tne ship, such numbers crowded into it that it went down, and all perished. About a hundred and forty young noblemen were lost on this occasion; and the only person who escaped was a butcher of Rouen, who clung to the mast. Fitz-Ste- phen also grasped it ; but, on being informed that the prince was lost, he said he would not survive, and let ffo his hold. The king, when assured of the calamity, fainted away, and never regained his cheerfulness. The death of this prince was a misfortune to Eng- land, inasmuch as it 'gave occasion to the civil wars which ensued ; but, had he survived, he would proba- bly have been as great a tjrrant as any of his race ; for he often declared, that if ever he came to govern Eng- land, he would yoke the Saxons to the plough like oxen. Queen MatiMa had died two years before her son, in 1118. As the prince had left no issue, the king, who had no legitimate son remaining, resolved to marry again. His choice, in 1121, fell on Adelais or Alice, daughter of the Duke of Louvain, and niece of Pope Calixtus. But Adelais brought him no children ; and young Will- iam, his nephew, having again gained the Count of Anjou to his side, was able to keep Normandy in a State of disturbance for some years. Henry, howev- er, again, in 1127, detached the Earl of Anjou by a Kiarriage. His only remaining legitimate child, a daughter named Matilda or Maud, had been married to the Emperor Henry V. She was now a widow ; and he offered her haiM to Geoffrey, the coimt's eldest son. The marriage took place, though contrary to the indiaation of the emj^ess, who regarded it as a Digitized by LjOOQIC 128 HENRY I. [1 127-1 1S5. degradation : it was opposed also by several of the barons of England and Normandy. Matilda was rec- ognised as heiress of all her father's dominions. The King of France still continued his support of William Fitz-Robert ; and when Henry, by his influence with the church, had succeeded in having that prince divor- ced from the daughter of the Count of Anjou, on the plea of consanguinity, Louis gave him in marriage, in 1124, his queen's sister ; and, on the death of the Earl of Flanders, who was assassinated in 1127, when at church, he invested him with that county. But Will- iam, doomed to be the sport of fortune, did not long enjoy his dignity. In consequence of his having ta- ken severe vengeance on the murderers of his pifede- cessor, a plot was laid by their friends and relatives to assassinate him when retiring from the apartments of his mistress late in the night. This woman, who was privy to the design, could not refrain from letting tears drop on his head while bafhing it, according to the fashion of those times. William's suspicions were awakened : he urged her, and she at last told him the whole truth. He thus escaped this danger; but he shortly afterward, in 1128, died of a wound received in battle at Alost, against the Count of Alsatia. Henry was now free from uneasiness : his daugh- ter, the empress, gave birth to a son and heir in 1132 ; and two more sons bom to her, seemed to render the succession secure. He made the nobility renew their oath of fealty to her and her eldest son, in a council held at Oxford. He spent the latter years of his reign chiefly in Normandy, to be near the empress, for whom he had a strong affection. An incursion of the Welsh having taken place in 1135, he was preparing to return to England, when, having eaten too heartily of lampreys, a food he was often cautioned against, he got a surfeit, and died on the 1st of December, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His body was brought over to England, and interred at Reading. Henry I. was a monarch of superior ability : the Conqueror alone, of his family, equalled him in talent. He showed great spirit in his dealmgs with the church, Digitized by CjOOQIC 1135.] CHARACTER OF HENRf. 139 and caused justice to be rigidly executed. " A good man was he, and mickle dread was there of him," says the Saxon Chronicle. " Peace made he for man and beast ; whoso bare his burden of gold and silver, no man durst say to him aught but good." But he set at naught his charters and his promises^ and he taxed his people without mercy; he increased the rigour of the forest-laws, and enlarged the forests ; he punished him who killed a stag as him who murdered a man ; he caused all the dogs near the forests to be mutilated ; and men were even in some cases prohib- ited from hunting on their own lands : a great griev- ance in those days. Henry was more addicted to literature than was usual among princes and nobles at that time ; whence he obtained the appellation of Beauclerc, or Fine-scholar. His treatment of his brother and nephew violated all the principles of na^ ture and justice; but, when there has been uncon- trolled power, and a kingdom is the prize, these prin- ciples have been set at naught in all ages of the world. In the year 1109, Henry, as a check on the turb* lent Welsh, settled at Haverford-west, in Pembroke- shire, a colony of Flemings. These men, who had been driven from their own country by an inundation of the Rhine, applied themselves to the culture of the soil and the manufacture of cloth ; and they were al- ways able to repel the efforts of the Welsh to dislodge them. Digitized by CjOOQIC 130 STEPHEN. [1135 CHAPTER IV. STEPHEN.* 1135-1154. Usurpation of Stephen. — Miseries endured by the People.— War between Stephen and the Empress; between Stephen and young Henry. — Death of Stephen. In a regularly-ordered state, the succession of Ma- tilda would have followed as a matter of course, as no one else had even the shadow of a claim to the crown : but Henry himself had, by his usurpation, shown how a crown might be acquired without right ; and there was one, whom perhaps he little suspected, ready to tread in his footsteps. Adela, daughter of the Conqueror, had been married to the Count of Blois, to whom she bare a numerous offspring. Two of her sons had been invited over to England by King Henry ; and he made one of them, Henry, who was in holy orders. Abbot of Glastonbury, and afterward Bishop of Winchester. For Stephen, the other, he obtained in marriage the daughter and heiress of the Count of Boulogne, who had also large estates in England ; and he moreover conferred on him extensive domains in both England and Norman- dy. Stephen always affected great gratitude towards his uncle, and he had been forward in taking the oath of fealty to the empress in llSl.f By his valour, lib- erality, and affable manners, he had gained great fa- *• Authorities same as before, with the Gesta Stephani, Con- tin. Flor., and Gervasius. t On that occasion the King of Scots first took the oath of fealty in Tirtue of his rank. Stephen, and Robert of Gloucester, the king's natural son, contended for the second place. It may be, as Dr. Lingard says, that they both had designs on the throne : bat the subsequent conduct of Robert contradicts this supposition. Digitized by CjOOQIC 1135.] USURPATION OP STEPHEN. 131 TOUT with both barons and people in England ; and the citizens of London were especially devoted to him. On the death of his uncle, Stephen resolved to make a bold effort for the crown. He passed over to Eng- land, and hastened to London, where he was received with acclamations by the populace. His brother and the Bishop of Salisbury endeavoured to prevail on the primate to crown him ; and, to overcome that prelate's scruples, they produced Hugh Bigod, a servant of the late king, who made oath that, when on his deathbed, he had declared his intention of making the Count of Boulogne his heir. The primate was, or affected to be, convinced ; and he performed the ceremony of the coronation at Westminster on the 22d of December. Stephen, imitating his predecessor, issued a charter exactly similar to his, with probably as little intention of observing it. He had farther, still following his uncle's example, lost no time in getting possession of the royal treasure of i^l00,000 ($480,000) which lay at Winchester ; and, with this money, he took into his pay a large body of mercenary soldiers from the Con- tinent,*and procured a recognition of his title at Rome. The Norman barons, moved by hereditary animos- ity to the Angevins, and also by the motives which had always made them desire the union of their duchy vTith England, readily submitted to Stephen ; while the King of France, Louis the Young, received the hom- age of his son Eustace for that province, and gave him his own sister in marriage. Geoffrey of Anjou was obliged to make a truce for two years with Ste- phen, on condition of being paid 5000 marks ($16,000) a year during that period. Robert, earl of Glouces- ter, the natural brother of the empress, to whom he was much attached, was the person whom Stephen had most to dread. This nobleman would do him homage only on conditions which would give him a pretext for revolt whenever he pleased, and the king was obliged to consent. The clergy made similar reservations in their oaths ; the barons extorted ^the right of fortifying their castles ; and soon fortresses rose on all sides, filled with a brutal and ferocious sol- Digitized by CjOOQIC 132 STEPHEN. [1139. dieiy. A contest for tbe crown commenced eve ioag hetw^een Stei^ien and Matilda ; and the miseries which lensued are thus vividly described by one who wit- nessed them. " In this king^s time," says the contemporary Saxon Chronicle, " was all dissension, and evil, and rapine ; for against him soon arose the rich (t. e., great) men that were traitors ; when they fomid that he was a mild man, and soft, and good, and did no justice [exe- cution], then did they do aH wonders. They had done him homage and sworn oaths, but they held no truth ; they were all forsworn, and heeded not their troth ; for every rich man built his castles, and they hdd them against him, and they filled the land full of cas- tles. They sorely oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works, and when the castles were made they filled them with devils and evil men ; then took they the men that they weened had any goods, both by night and by day, peasant men and women, and put them in prison for their gold and silver, «|id tortured them Avith tortures not to be told, for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were ; some they hung up by the feet, and smoked them with foid smoke; some they hung by the thumbs or by the head, and hung coats of mail at their feet ; to some they put knotted strings round their head, and twisted them till it went to the brains ; they put them into dungeons where there were adders, and snakes, smd toa&, and killed them so ; some they put in the cru- cet-house, that is, in a chest that was short and nar- row, and not deep, and put sharp stones in it, and for- ced the man in, and so broke all his limbs. In many of the castles were things loathly and grim, that were called Sachenteges [culprits^ halters], of which two or three men had enough to do to carry one that was so made, that is, fastened to a beam ; and they put a sharp iron about the man^s throat and neck, that he might on no side sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many thousands did they kill with hunger. I cannot and may not tell aU the wounds and all the pains that they gave to wretched men in this land, and that lasted Digitized by CjOOQIC 1136.] MISERIES OF THE PEOPLE. 133 for the nineteen winters that Stephen was Icing, and still it was worse and worse. They laid guilds [taxes] evermore on the towns, and called it iensezie ; when the wretched men had no more to give, they robbed and burned all the towns, that well thou mightest go a whole day's journey, and shouldest never find a man sitting [dwelling] in a town or land tilled. Then was com dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter, for there was none in the land. Wretched men died of hunger ; some took to alms who were one time rich men; some fled out of the land ; never yet was more wretch- edness in the land, and never did heathen men worse than they did ; for after a time they spared neither church nor churchyard,* but took aU the goods that were therein, and then burned church and all togeth- er ; neither did they spare bishop's land, nor abbot's, nor priest's, but robbed monks and clerks, and every man who was able another ; if two or three men came riding to a town, all the township fled before them, weening that they were robbers. The bishops and learned men cursed them evermore, but naught thereof came on them, for they were all accursed, and for- sworn, and abandoned. It was the sea men tilled ; the earth bare no com, for the land was all destroyed with such deeds, and they said openly that Christ slept and his saints. Such and more than we can say we tholed nineteen winters for our sins." After this faithful picture, drawn by the hand of one who described what he beheld, of the horrors of feu- dalism and the misery caused by the usurpation of Stephen, it seems harcUy necessary to go into details ; we will, however, narrate succinctly the principal events of the contest for the crown. In the first year of Stephen's reign, 1136, the Earl of Exeter took arms against him ; and David, king of Scotland, invaded Eugland in the cause of his niece the empress : but the earl was forced to submit, and the Scottish king agreed to an accommodation. In * The cbarchyard, being consecrated, partook of the sanctity of the church ; and peopl« used to place their goods in it for se- curity. Vol. I.— M Digitized by CjOOQIC 134 STEPHEN. [1138-1141. 1138 David again invaded England. The ravages committed by his wild, ferocious followers are de- scribed as exceeding the usual limits of atrocity ; and the Earl of Albemarle and the other barons of those parts, animated by Thurstan, the venerable archbishop of York, lost no time in collecting their troops to op- pose them. The armies encountered at Northaller- ton on the 22dof August ; and in the battle called that of the Standard, from a large crucifix on a wain used by the English as a standard, the Scots were totally defeated. Earl Robert, having matured his plans in favour of his sister, pretended that Stephen had violated the conditions made with him, renounced his allegiance, and withdrew to the Continent in 1139. As Stephen had now embroiled himself also with the church, by forcing the bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln to deliver tip the castles they had erected, Robert advised the empress to appear in England to head her part}^ She landed on the 14th of September, with him and one hundred and forty knights, m Sussex, was received by the queen dowager Adelais in her castle of Arun- del, and thence proceeded to her brother's castle of Bristol. Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel, and several other barons, declared for her, and her cause gradually gained ground. Battles and skir- mishes occurred in various parts through the follow- ing year; at length, on the 14th of February, 1141, Stephen and Earl Robert came to an engagement near Lincoln, and the king was defeated and led a captive to Gloucester, where he was treated with great rigour. The barons of Stephen's party all submitted; the Bishop of Winchester, who was invested with legatine authority, and had been on ill terms with his brother on account of the affair of the two bishops, was now induced to come to an agreement with Matilda ; to gain the clergy more eflfectually, she consented to re- ceive the crown from their hands ; and in a sjmod summoned by the legate, at which the deputies of the Londoners* were the only laymen present, she was * Fitzstephen, the biographer of Becket, says that in this reign Digitized by CjOOQIC 1 142-1 146.J WAR WITH THE EMPRESS. 135 proclaimed Queen of England. Her authority was generally acknowledged, but tranquillity did not long remain. Besides the disadvantage of her sex, she was of a haughty, impetuous temper ; she rejected in the most ungracious manner the petition of Stephen's queen and several of the nobility for his release; though they engaged that he should renounce the crown ; also that of the legate, that his nephew Eus- tace might be allowed to retain his patrimonial es- tates ; and that of the Londoners for the laws of King Edward. The Londoners were grievously offended ; and the legate, who had probably never been sincere in the cause of MatUda, fanning their wrath, they conspired to seize her. She fled to Oxford, and thence, hasten- ed to Winchester, with the intention of arresting the legate; but she was there herself besieged by the 4iondoners, Stephen's mercenaries, and the legate's vassals. Being hard pressed, she was obhged to at- tempt an escape, which she effected with difficulty ; but her brother Robert was taken prisoner, and he was of so much importance to the cause, that her party were glad to give Stephen in exchange for him. The war was now renewed, and was carried on for some years with various success. In the severe win- ter of 1142, the empress was closely besieged by Ste- phen in the castle of Oxford. When her stock of provisions was exhausted, she dressed herself and three knights in white, as the ground was covered with snow ; a sentinel, who had been bribed, conduct- ed them through the enemy's posts ; they crossed the Thames on the ice, proceeded to Abingdon on foot, and thence, having procured horses, rode to Walling- ford. This escape was a matter of astonishment to her enemies, while her friends viewed it as httle less than miraculous. At length, in 1146, the death of her brother Robert the citizens of London were 20,000 horse and 60,000 foot. This supposes a population of upward of 300,000, which is utterly in- credible. The population is computed by modem writers at less than 50,000. Digitized by CjOOQIC 136 STEPHEN. [1147-1 152- and of some of her other friends, convinced the era- press of the uncertainty of the event ; and she with- drew to Normandy in 1147, to watch the progress of affairs. Her departure, however, brought little tran- quillity to Stephen ; for he soon alienated many of his partisans by requiring the surrender of their castles. The legatine power adso had been transferred by the new pope Eugenius to the primate Theobald, the en- emy of the late legate ; and, moreover, the pope, as Stephen resisted one of his encroachments, had laid his party under an interdict. There was, however, a cessation of hostilities for two years after the departure of the empress. In 1150 her son Henry, who had now reached his six- teenth year, being desirous or receiving knighthood from the' King of Scotland, passed through England with a large retinue, and raised the hopes of his par- tisans. On his return, in 1161, after having spent some time in the Scottish court, his mother resigned* Normandy to him ; and, on the death of his father, he inherited Anjou. The following year, 1 1 52, he greatly increased his power by a marriage with Eleanor of Guienne and Poitou. This princess had been married to the French king Louis the Young; she was the companion of his crusade to the Holy Land in 1148 ; and her conduct in the East had been so reprehensi- ble, that Louis, on his return, yielding to the sugges- tions of delicacy rather than of prudence, had divorced her. The young Count of Anjou, less fastidious, im- mediately paid his addresses to her, and espoused her within six weeks after the divorce ; and his do- minions now extended from the confines of Flanders to the Pyrenees ; while his superior lord Lewis did not rule over more than a tenth of France. Louis, incensed at this conduct of the Count of Anjou, aided Stephen's son Eustace to overrun Normandy: but Henry speedily drove them out of it ; and then, as Stephen was now besieging Wallingford, which was held by his partisans, he passed over to their aid. To draw Stephen away, he laid siege to Malmesbury ; and, having taken that town, marched to the relief of Wat- Digitized by CjOOQIC 1153.] WAR WITH YOUNG HENRY. 137 lingford. The two armies lay in sight of each other, separated by the river Thames. Meantime the pre- lates and nobles on each side, weary of civil discord, Proposed an accommodation; the Earl of Arundel oldly saying " that it was not reasonable to prolong the calamities of a whole kingdom on account of the ambition of two princes ;" and Henry and Stephen, having conversed across a narrow part of the river, agreed to a truce for that purpose. Stephen's son Eustace, a turbulent youth, abused his father openly for concluding this truce ; and, withdrawing from the camp with his followers, began to ravage Cambridge- shire. These terms being sworn to, Henry returned to Normandy. Stephen did not long retain his dignity : he died on the 25th of October, in the following year, after a boisterous and unquiet reign of nineteen years. He was a prince possessed of many noble and esti- mable qualities ; and would have probably made an excellent king if he had acquired his crown in a legal manner. M2 Digitized by CjOOQIC 138 ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION. CHAPTER V. AMOLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION. ETSects of the Conqaest.— Feudal System. —State of the Church. — Courta of Law.— Taxea. Hating thus brought the Angio-Norman period of our history to its close, we will make a few remarks on the condition of the nation at this time. An erroneous opinion has long prevailed, that the Norman Conquest swept, like a moral deluge, over the country, carrying away its ancient and venerable institutions, and leaving in their place such as had been hitherto unknown in England. We are told that the Conqueror had even formed a plan for fixing on the English nation the ultimate badge of conquest, by abolishing their native dialect, and forcing them to assume that of their masters ; for which purpose he ordered that the French language should be taught in all the schools, employed in pleadings in the high court of justice, or Curia Regis, and used in laws and charters. The whole of this theory, however, rests only on authority of the most dubious character.* The Conqueror and his son Heniy I. re-enacted, as we have seen, the laws of the Confessor; the English language (never the French) was employed by them in their charters ; and, though the latter was probably much used in the Curia Regis, the members of which were mostly Normans, it was a matter of convenience rifiher than of obligation. Finally, the county and other courts continued in use, little altered. The great changes introduced by the Norman Con- quest were the almost total transfer of landed prop- erty; the change of the hierarchy in the church; the develoi»nent of the feudal system; and the sep- * Namely, that of Ingulf. See Palgrave. Digitized by CjOOQIC FEUDAL SYSTEM. 139 aration of the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction. Of these the first two have been already sufficiently noticed : we will therefore proceed to explain the last two. "^ The more inquiry into the Middle Ages advances, the more we recognise the influence of Rome, and the imitative habits of the tribes which overturned her empire. It was long the fashion to regard the feudal System as an original, regular plan, formed by the arbarians for the preservation of the conquests they had made. More accurate inquiries make it probable that the system, in its main points, lay ready to their hands. The colonists of ancient Rome were bound to mil- itary service when called on by the state ; and, in the latter days of the Republic, they were soldiers alone who were thus rewarded by their victorious general. The Emperor Alexander Severus extended this sys- tem, as the means of defending the frontiers of the empire. Lands were given to those who were named the Lindtanean and Ripuarian soldiery, from their lo- cation on the marches or lifnites, and on the banks or ripa, of the great fk)ntier rivers ; and to their heii^^ vnthout the power of alienation, and on the express condition of miKtary service. At a subsequent peri- od, lands denominated Laetic* were given, in the mte- rior of the provinces, to large bodies of the Barba- rians on siinilar conditions. We thus find the sys- tem of the. tenure of land by mihtary service com- pletely formed ; and the other great characteristic of the feudal system, the personal relation of Lord and Vassal, may, perhaps, be as safely deduced from that of Patron and Client at Rome (its similarity to which has often been observed), as from the antecedent usa- ges of the Celtic or German tribes. All the elements of feudaUsm prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons ; but the pecuHar circumstances in which the Normans were placed caused it to attain a more * From the Geimanic Leod, UvXt^ people. Digitized by CjOOQIC 140 ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION. perfect form ; and the ingenuity of Norman lawyers drew such consequences from it, as made it a system. of absolute slavery. In the feudal system of England, the king was re- garded as the original proprietor of all the lands in the kingdom ; those who held them were his vassals, and were obliged to sweax fealty j that is, fidehty, to him, and to do him homage, or become his men. The vas- sal who was thus held by mihtary service was bound to serve his lord in war, and to attend or do suit to his court in peace, in order to answer for any offences he might have himsel/ committed, and to assist in the tri^ of others. The lands of England were divided by the Con- queror into about sixty thousand feuds, fiefs, or knights' fees. He who held an entire fee was bound, in time of war, to serve for forty days at his own expense ; he who had half a one for twenty, and so on ; and the lord, who held several fees, furnished men in propor- tion. A vassal of the crown, or tenant in capite, or in chief, as he was called, might subenfeudate his lands, and have vassals bound to himself, as he was to his superior lord : but these were also regarded as vassals of the crown, and bound by allegiance. The incidents of the Anglo-Norman feudalism were as follows : Aids. — These were sums of money paid to ransom the lord if made a prisoner ; to supply the means of making his eldest son a knight, a ceremony attended with no little expense ; and to portion his eldest daugh- ter. Reliefs. — The relief was a composition paid by the heir, for permission to enter on the fief which had lapsed to the superior lord by the death of the last possessor. Primer Seisin. — This was an increased relief, paid to the king by the heir of a tenant in chief, if of full age. It usually consisted of a year's profit of the lands. Wardship. — If, at the death of a tenant, his heir was under the age of twenty-one, or his heiress under that Digitized by CjOOQIC ENGKOACHMENTS OF THE PAPACY. 141 of fourteen, the lord became guardian in chivalry ; and he had the custody of the person and lands, wim- out being accoimtable for the profits, till the former attained the age of t'\renty-one, or the latter that of fourteen years. The heir m cavite^ on coming of age, was bound to take knighthood or pay a fine to me king. Marriage, — During the minority, the lord had the power of disposing of his ward in matrimony, provi- ded the match was not one of disparagement ; and if the ward refused it, he or she forfeited the value of the marriage : that is, the sum that any one would have given for it to the guardian. If a male ward married without the consent of his guardian, he for- feited double the value of the marriage. If a tenant in chief transferred his land, a fine for alienation was due to the king. If he died without heirs of his blood, or was attainted fdr treason or fel- ony, the land reverted to the lord. Such were the main features of feudalism iii Eng- land ; and when we consider the wardships and mar- riages (both peculiar to English feudalism), and the arbitrary nature of reliefs and aids, we may fairly look upon it as a system of slavery and oppression.*!" We are now to consider the condition of the church at this time ; for which purpose we must sketch the vast project of sacerdotal dominion formed by the as- piring mind of Pope Gregory VII. In consequence, chiefly, of the imbecile superstition of the kings of France, the episcopal order had made great advances towards the acquisition of a power * The principle of the relief was certainly less unjust than that of the modern legacy-duty in England. t " A feudaJ kingdom/' says Mackintosh^ " was a confederacy of a numerous body of lords, who lived in a state of war against each other, and of rapine against all mankind ; in which the king* according to his ability and vigour, was either a cipher or a ty- rant, and a great portion of the people were reduced to personal slavery." For a full and interesting account of the feudal system, its establishment, institutions, character, and effects, see Hsulam's Middle Ages, p. 64 to 125, Harpers' edition.—.^. Ed. Digitized by CjOOQIC 142 ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION. similar to that of the ancient Druids. From the ear- liest times, in consequence of the rank of the city over which he presided, a kind of supremacy had been generally conceded to the Bishop of Rome ; this no- tion of his superiority gradually extended, in conse- quence of the discontent of prelates, who appealed to him against their metropoUtans ; and he thus was im- perceptibly drawing to himself the power acquired by the episcopal order. In the latter part of the eighth century, a work, purporting to be a collection of de- crees of former pontiffs, appeared under the name of one Isidore. This forgery, as it has been long known to be, was calculated to extend the papal authority and diminish that of the metropolitans, by enjoining appeals to Rome; and forbid(hng to hold nations^ councils without the permission of the pontiff. The bishops gladly acquiesced in them; and the papal power rapidly advanced. Its strength was also in- creased by the more rigorous imposition of celibacy on the clergy, and by the spreading of the rule of St. Benedict : points on which we have already touched. Such was the state of the papacy, when the cele- brated Hildebrand became its animating spirit. His daring mind conceived the project, not merely of free- ing the church from all subordination to the temporal power, but of making it supreme over it. The sub- ject of investitures, or the conferring of spiritual dig- nities by lay princes, was that with which he opened the contest, when, imder the name of Gregory VII., he ascended the papal throne. From the earhest times, bishops had been elected by the clergy and people. The form still continued ; but princes easily managed to have the real appointment; and in Eng- land we have seen the direct nomination by the crown. Gross simony of course prevailed : for what ^as vjj- uable would be naturally the subject of bargain and sale; and the temporalities attacned to the spiritual dignities were in most places considerable. These temporalities, mostly the grants of former kings, were regarded in the light of fiefs. The new bishop, there- Digitized by CjOOQIC ENCROACHMENTS OF THE PAPACY. 143 fore, was required to swear fealty, and to do homage to the lord who invested him, by the delivery of a ring and crosier. Gregory issued a decree against this practice; and thus commenced a contest with the Emperor Henry IV. which lasted throughout their lives, and was kept up by their successors for nearly half a century. It was terminated by a compromise with the Emperor Henry V., the monarch recognising the freedom of elections, and resigning the right of conferring the spiritual dignity (by the ring and cro- sier), but retaining that of dehvering the temporalities by the sceptre. A similar arrangement was made with Henry I. of England, who had vigorously con- tested this point with the papacy, and its uncompro- mising advocate, Archbishop Anselm. Each party thus gave up something ; but the real gain seems to have been on the side of the crown.* In the disputes on this subject, we discern the influ- ence of the doctrine of transubstantiation, which, ig- norant and superstitious as the preceding ages h^ been, was not yet established by the pontifical au- thority. At the Council of Bari in 1096, it was de- clared to be abominable that pure hands, which could create God, and offer him up in sacrifice for the sins of the world, should (in the act of homage) be placed between hands polluted with rapine and bloodshed, and defiled by contact with the other sex. The abomination, however, was suffered to remain.! To extend the papal power over the prelacy, it was decreed that no bishop should exercise his function till he had been confirmed by the Holy See. Bishops were cited to Rome on the most frivolous pretexts ; * This contest affords a proof that the popes and clergy were often actuated by a sense of iilstice and duty in the apparently most dubious cases. Paschal II. t The doctrine of transubstantiation, as held by the Romish Church, is, that the elements of bread and wine employed in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, are miraculously changed into the feal body and blood of ChiiBt.-'iUi. Ed, Digitized by CjOOQIC 144 ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION. and archbishops were obliged by Gregory to go thither in person to receive their consecrated pallium, or robe. A farther hardship was the constant sending of special ministers, or legates d latere. Hitherto a metropoli- tan of the country (in England the Archbishop of Can- lerbury) had held a perpetual legatine authority, as the pope's lieutenant or representative; but now spe- cial legates were continually coming, who assumed high authority, held councils, deposed bishops, framed canons, and, at the same time,hved in great splendour at the expense of the prelates, whose pride was gall- ed by the circumstance of the legate often being but a simple deacon. To maintain their power, the popes had two most efficacious weapons : excommumcation and interdict. The former had been originally nothing more than the power which every society has of expelling its own unruly members ; but the See of Rome had gradually managed to invest it with terrors, and to use it as a weapon of offence and vengeance.* The excommu- nicate were anathematized with a fiendish minuteness of detail, in soul and bodyi in hmbs and joints, in their goinffs out and comings in, in all times and in all pla- ces ;t they were cut off from society like the leprous, any communication with them being declared morally infectious ; and, when they died, the rites of sepulture were denied them. This sentence, however, only af- fected those who brought it on themselves by opposi- tion to the papal power ; while its interdict fell often upon the innocent. When a prince or noble had of- fended the Holy See, and the milder sentence did not prove efficacious, his dominions were laid under inter- dict : that is, religious offices were interdicted in ttiem. * '* No direct temporal disadvantages/' says Hallam, ** attended this penalty for several ages; bat, as it was the most serious of spiritual censures, and tended to exclude the object of it not only firom a participation in religious rites, bat, in a considerable de- gree, from the intercourse of Christian society, it was used spa- ' ringly, and upon the gravest occasions."— flallam's Middle Ages, { p. 276, Harpers* edition.-~ilm. £d. I t See Southey, Book of the Church, i., 190, 191. I Digitized by CjOOQIC COU&TS OF JXJ8TIC£. 145 So service was performed in the churches ; no bells were tolled; no sacraments administered, save the first and the last, baptism and extreme unction ; the dead were buried in silence ; and a moral gloom over- spread the land. It was Gregory tha^ first employed these spiritual weapons with effect. In the plenitude of his power, he dared to exconmiunicate the Emperor Henry, and even to issue against him a sentence of deposition from the throne, releasing thereby his sub- ^ jects from their allegiance. In England, the usurpations of the papal see were greatly forwarded by the separation, made in the time of the Conqueror, of the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction. The clergy claimed now a total exem^ tion from trial before lay-tribunals, however great their crimes might l^e ; and, as the ecclesiastical tribunals inflicted no higher penalty than stripes, sacerdotal murderei^s and robbers thus escaped the punishment justly due to their crimes. The struggle between the crown and the ecclesiastical power on this head is soon to occupy our attention.* The county and other courts of the Saxon tim^s, as we have seen, remained unaffected by the Conquest. 