Chapter XI: The Last Years of Archbishop Theobald (1)

1156–1161.

All Henry’s endeavours for the material and political revival of his kingdom had been regulated thus far by one simple, definite principle:--the restoration of the state of things which had existed under his grandfather. In his own eyes and in those of his subjects the duty which lay before him at his accession, and which he had faithfully and successfully fulfilled, was to take up the work of government and administration not at the point where he found it, but at the point where it had been left by Henry I. and Roger of Salisbury: to pull down and sweep away all the innovations and irregularities with which their work had been overlaid during the last nineteen years, and bring the old foundations to light once more, that they might receive a legitimate superstructure planned upon their own lines and built upon their own principles. In law, in finance, in general administration, there was one universal standard of reference:--“the time of my grandfather King Henry.”

But there was one side of the national revival, and that the most important of all, to which this standard could not apply. The religious and intellectual movement which had begun under Henry I., far from coming to a standstill at his death, had gone on gathering energy and strength during the years of anarchy till it had become the one truly living power in the land, the power which in the end placed Henry II. on his throne. It looked to find in him a friend, a fellow-worker, a protector perhaps; but it had no need to go back to a stage which it had long since overpassed and make a new departure thence under the guidance of a king who was almost its own creation. At the very moment of Henry’s accession, the hopes of the English Church were raised to their highest pitch by the elevation of an Englishman to the Papal chair. Nicolas Breakspear was the only man of English birth who ever attained that lofty seat; and the adventures which brought him thither, so far as they can be made out from two somewhat contradictory accounts, form a romantic chapter in the clerical history of the time. Nicolas was the son of a poor English clerk[1538] at Langley, a little township belonging to the abbey of S. Alban’s.[1539] The father retired into the abbey,[1540] leaving his boy, according to one version of the story, too poor to go to school and too young and ignorant to earn his bread; he therefore came every day to get a dole at the abbey-gate, till his father grew ashamed and bade him come no more; whereupon the lad, “blushing either to dig or to beg in his own country,” made his way across the sea.[1541] Another version asserts that Nicolas, being “a youth of graceful appearance, but somewhat lacking in clerkly acquirements,” sued to the abbot of S. Alban’s for admission as a monk; the abbot examined him, found him insufficiently instructed, and dismissed him with a gentle admonition: “Wait awhile, my son, and go to school that you may become better fitted for the cloister.”[1542] Whether stung by the abbot’s hint or by his father’s reproofs, young Nicolas found his way to Paris and into its schools, where he worked so hard that he out-did all his fellow-students.[1543] But the life there wearied him as it had wearied Thomas Becket; he rambled on across Gaul into Provence, and there found hospitality in the Austin priory of S. Rufus. His graceful figure, pleasant face, sensible talk and obliging temper so charmed the brotherhood that they grew eager to keep him in their midst,[1544] and on their persuasion he joined the order.[1545] It seems that he was even made superior of the house, but the canons afterwards regretted having set a stranger to rule over them, and after persecuting him in various ways appealed to the Pope to get rid of him. The Pope--Eugene III.--at first refused to hear them; but on second consideration he decided to give them over to their own evil devices and offer their rejected superior a more agreeable post in his own court.[1546] Nicolas, who had already twice visited Rome, proceeded thither a third time and was made cardinal[1547] and bishop of Albano.[1548] Shortly afterwards he was appointed legate to Norway and Denmark, an office which he filled with prudence and energy during some years.[1549] Returning to Rome about 1150, he apparently acted as secretary to Eugene III. until the latter’s death in July 1153.[1550] The next Pope, Anastasius III., reigned only sixteen months, and dying on December 2, 1154, was succeeded by the bishop of Albano, who took the name of Adrian IV.[1551]

[1538] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 109).

[1539] _Gesta Abbat. S. Albani_ (Riley), vol. i. p. 112.

[1540] Will. Newb. as above. Probably he separated from his
wife in consequence of some of the decrees against clerical
marriage passed under Henry I.; that she was not dead is plain
from John of Salisbury’s mention of her as still living in the
days of his friendship with Nicolas. Joh. Salisb., _Metalog._,
l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p. 205).

[1541] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 109, 110).

[1542] _Gesta Abbat._ as above. The abbot’s name is there given
as Robert, but this must be wrong, as Robert did not become
abbot till 1151, and by 1150, as we shall see, Nicolas was at
Rome.

[1543] _Gesta Abbat._ (as above), pp. 112, 113.

[1544] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 110).

[1545] _Ibid._ _Gesta Abbat._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 113.

[1546] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 110, 111). The church of S.
Rufus (diocese Valence) had between 1145 and 1151 an abbot
named N.... The editors of _Gall. Christ._ (vol. xvi. cols.
359, 360) will not allow that this N. was Nicolas Breakspear,
and of course the date will not agree with the version of his
history in the _Gesta Abbat._; but it agrees perfectly with
that of Will. Newb.; while the _Gesta’s_ dates are confuted by
Nicolas’s undoubted signatures at Rome.

[1547] _Gesta Abbat._ as above.

[1548] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

[1549] Will. Newb. as above.

[1550] “A partir de l’année 1150, on trouve la souscription
de _Nicolaus episcopus Albanensis_ au bas des bulles d’Eugène
III.” Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. i. p. 288, note 2.

[1551] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Date from Cod. Vatic.,
Baronius, _Annales_ (Pagi), vol. xix. p. 77.

The English Church naturally hailed with delight the accession of a pontiff who was at once one of her own sons and a disciple of Eugene, whom the leaders of the intellectual and spiritual revival in England had come to regard almost as their patron saint.[1552] Adrian indeed shared all their highest and most cherished aspirations far more deeply and intimately than Eugene himself could have done. It was in the cloisters of Canterbury that these aspirations were gradually taking definite shape under the guidance of Archbishop Theobald. There, beneath the shadow of the cathedral begun by Lanfranc and completed by S. Anselm, their worthy successor had been throughout the last ten or twelve years of the anarchy watching over a little sanctuary where all that was noblest, highest, most full of hope and promise in the dawning intellectual life of the day found a peaceful shelter and a congenial home. The _Curia Theobaldi_, the household of Archbishop Theobald, was a sort of little school of the prophets, a seminary into which the vigilant primate drew the choicest spirits among the rising generation, to be trained up under his own eyes in his own modes of thought and views of life, till they were fitted to become first the sharers and then the continuators of his work for the English Church and the English nation. Through his scholars had come the revival of legal and ecclesiastical learning in England; through them had come the renewal of intercourse and sympathy with the sister-Churches of the west; through them had been conducted the negotiations with Rome which had led to the restoration of order and peace; and in them, as Theobald hoped, the Church, having saved the state, would find her most fitting instruments for the work of reform and revival which still remained to be done within her own borders. One by one, as the occasion presented itself, he began to send them forth to take independent positions in the Church or in the world. Of the chosen three whom he specially trusted, the first who thus left his side was John of Canterbury, who in 1153 succeeded Hugh of Puiset as treasurer of York. Next year Theobald was able to place another of his disciples in the northern metropolis in a far more important capacity: he succeeded in obtaining the royal assent to the appointment of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque as archbishop of York, in succession to S. William, who had been restored by Pope Anastasius after Henry Murdac’s death, but died six weeks after his restoration.[1553]

[1552] John of Salisbury frequently writes of him as “Sanctus
Eugenius.”

[1553] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 298, 299. Gerv. Cant.
(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26 (Howlett,
vol. i. pp. 80, 82). Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.),
pp. 10, 11.

Roger’s history before his entrance into the primate’s household is so completely lost that even the rendering of his surname is a matter of some doubt; it may have been derived from the English town of Bishopsbridge, and if so Roger was now going back as primate to his own native shire; it seems however more probable that he came from Pont-l’Evêque in Normandy.[1554] He was evidently some years older than Theobald’s other favourites, John of Canterbury and Thomas of London; for we find him and Gilbert Foliot quarrelling, apologizing, lecturing and forgiving each other with an outspoken freedom and familiarity possible only between two men of equal standing who have been friends from their youth.[1555] With Thomas Becket, on the other hand, Roger was never upon really friendly terms; jealous, no doubt, of the younger man who seemed likely to supersede him in the primate’s confidence, Roger lost no opportunity of teasing the “hatchet-clerk” (as he called Thomas, from the nickname of the man who had first introduced him to Theobald), and made his life so wretched that he was twice driven to quit the archbishop’s house and take refuge with Theobald’s brother, Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, till the latter smoothed the way for his return.[1556] On Walter’s elevation to the see of Rochester in 1148 his archdeaconry was given to Roger;[1557] he also held some other preferments, all of which he was at one time in great danger of losing--most likely on account of his share in the famous “swimming-voyage” to Reims; but his friend Gilbert Foliot secured him the protection of the Pope;[1558] and the restoration of the archbishop would naturally involve that of the archdeacon. After six years’ tenure of his office at Canterbury Roger was called to go up higher. Theobald had more than one reason for desiring his archdeacon’s elevation. He wished it for Roger’s own sake; he wished it still more for the sake of his younger favourite, whom he longed to establish in a position of dignity and importance, yet close to his own side; above all, he wished it for the sake of the Church;[1559] for he naturally hoped that in leaving one of his own foremost disciples seated on the metropolitan chair of York, he would be leaving at least one prelate of the highest rank firmly pledged to those schemes of ecclesiastical policy and organization which he himself had most at heart. His confidence in Roger was over-great. After all the disputes about the canonical relations between Canterbury and York which had wasted the energies of Lanfranc and embittered the last days of S. Anselm, Theobald missed his opportunity of securing at last a full acknowledgement of Canterbury’s superior rights, and was rash enough to consecrate Roger without requiring from him a profession of obedience.[1560] The large-hearted primate evidently never dreamed that any question of obedience could arise between himself and one of his spiritual sons, or that Roger’s loyalty to him could fail to be extended to his successor. He never discovered his mistake; it was Roger’s old rival, and with him the English Church, who ultimately had to bear its unhappy consequences.

[1554] There is a bit of evidence on this side in _Thomas Saga_
(Magnusson), vol. i. p. 40, where the writer calls him “Rogerum
Nevstriensem.”

[1555] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. cix.–cxi. (Giles, vol. i. pp.
135–145). This was after Roger became archbishop; the quarrel
went so far that Roger appealed to Rome about it, and carried
his appeal in person. (What can be the date of this?) Gilbert
owns that he had let his sharp tongue run away with him; Roger
lectures him soundly, but ends with “ecce jam in occursum
vestrum vetus festinat amicus,” and a proposal to kill the
fatted calf in celebration of his repentance (Ep. cx. p. 141).

[1556] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
16. Cf. Anon I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 9, 10; E. Grim (_ib._
vol. ii.), p. 362; and Gamier (Hippeau), p. 10.

[1557] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 133.

[1558] “Clericus ... dilecti filii vestri domini Cantuariensis
archiepiscopi Magister R. de Ponte Episcopi vestrum adit
urgente necessitate præsidium ut ad tuenda ea quæ canonice
possidet a vestrâ imploret serenitate patrocinium.” Gilb.
Foliot, Ep. xvii (Giles, vol. i. p. 30). The salutation of
the letter runs “Summo Dei gratiâ Pontifici E., frater G.
Glocestriæ dictus abbas”; it looks very much as if written
in the interval between the council of Reims and Gilbert’s
consecration.

[1559] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 10.

[1560] “Sed professionem non fecit” [Roger], significantly
remarks R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 298. Roger was
consecrated at Westminster on October 10, 1154; _ibid._ Gerv.
Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158.

Immediately after Roger’s consecration Thomas was raised by his primate to deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Canterbury.[1561] A few months later the accession of Henry II. opened the way for his advancement in another direction. His appointment to the chancellorship involved a great self-sacrifice on the part of Theobald; for the chancellor’s duties--at least as conceived by Thomas, and as Theobald had intended him to conceive them--took him not only quite away from those of his archdeaconry and from his primate’s side, but very often out of the country altogether; so that Theobald in giving him up to the king had condemned himself to pass his declining years apart from the object of his warmest earthly affections. But the _Curia Theobaldi_ was by no means deserted; though it had lost its most brilliant star, there was no lack of lesser lights to brighten the primate’s home-circle; there was one whose soft mild radiance, less dazzling than the glory of Thomas, was a far truer and steadier reflex of Theobald’s own calm and gentle spirit. Yet John of Salisbury had entered the archbishop’s household within a comparatively recent period. His father’s name seems to have been Reinfred;[1562] his family connexions were all in or around the city whence his surname was derived;[1563] but there is some indication that John himself may have been born in London.[1564] In the year after the death of Henry I. he went to study in Paris, and there received his first lessons in dialectics from the greatest scholar of the day--sitting at the feet of Peter Abelard, and eagerly drinking in, to the utmost capacity of his young mind, every word that fell from the master’s lips. Abelard departed all too soon, and John pursued his studies for about two years under his successors Alberic and Robert, of whom the latter, although commonly called “Robert of Melun” from having taught with distinction in that place, was an Englishman by birth, and will come before us again in later days as Gilbert Foliot’s successor in the bishopric of Hereford. It must have been precisely during those two years that Thomas of London also was in Paris for the first time, striving for his mother’s sake to overcome his dislike of books; and it was possibly there that the two young Englishmen, who must have been of nearly the same age, began to form an acquaintance which afterwards ripened into a lifelong friendship. And it can only have been about the same time, and in that same wonderful meeting-place where so many of the happiest and most fruitful associations of the time had their beginnings, that John of Salisbury first met with Nicolas of Langley.

[1561] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.
17. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),
p. 4. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11. Garnier (Hippeau), p.
10. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),
vol. i. p. 213, where he is called “Thomas Beket”--apparently
for the first time.

[1562] “Magister B. filius Reinfred peccator, fraterculus
meus,” is named by Joh. Salisb. Ep. xc. (Giles, vol. i. p. 135).

[1563] See his correspondence _passim_.

[1564] There is among John’s letters a most enigmatical
one--Ep. cxxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109)--without date, address,
or writer’s name, but very much in the tone and style of John’s
familiar letters--in which a Londoner, or rather a man who
tried to make himself out to be such, is described as “concivis
noster.” It looks very much as if written by John to Thomas.

Thomas went home to the plodding life of a city merchant’s clerk; Nicolas set out on the long course of wandering which was to bring him at last to the Papal chair; John, having as he says “steeped himself to the finger-tips in dialectics, and moreover learned to think his knowledge greater than it really was,” applied himself for the next three years to the schools of the grammarians William of Conches and Richard l’Evêque, with whom he went over again the whole course of his previous studies, penetrated somewhat deeper into those of the _quadrivium_ which he had begun under the direction of a German named Hardwin, and improved some slight notions of rhetoric which he had acquired at the lectures of a certain Master Theodoric. His relatives were quite unable to maintain him all this while; like all poor students of the day, he earned his living and his college-fees by teaching others, and as he pleasantly says “What I learned was the better fixed in my mind, because I constantly had to bring it out for my pupils.” One of these pupils was William of Soissons, to whom he taught the elements of logic, “and who afterwards contrived, as his followers say, a method of breaking down the old strongholds of logic, producing unexpected consequences, and overthrowing the opinions of the ancients.” John however declined to believe in a “system of impossibilities,” for which he at any rate was clearly not responsible; for he had soon transferred his pupil to the care of one Master Adam, an English teacher deeply versed in Aristotelian lore. It seems just possible that this Master Adam, who was at this time helping John in his studies not as a teacher but as a friend,[1565] was the same who many years before had stood in a somewhat similar relation to Gilbert Foliot.[1566] He may, however, perhaps be more probably identified with Adam “du Petit-Pont”--so called from the place where he lectured in Paris--who in 1176 became bishop of S. Asaph’s.[1567] After a while John found that with all his efforts he could hardly earn enough to live upon in Paris; so by the advice of his friends he determined to set up a school elsewhere.[1568] While sitting at the feet of the “Peripatetic” doctors on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève he had become acquainted with a young native of Champagne, Peter by name, who was studying in the school of S. Martin-des-Champs.[1569] The two friends, it seems, settled together at Provins in Peter’s native land, and there, under the protection of the good Count Theobald,[1570] laboured and prospered for three years.[1571] Long afterwards, from his anxious post at the side of the dying Archbishop Theobald, John’s thoughts strayed tenderly back to the days which he and his young comrade, with hearts as light as their purses, had spent among the roses of Champagne: “I am the same that ever I was,” he wrote to Peter, now abbot of Celle, “only I possess more than you and I had between us at Provins.”[1572] He returned to Paris, revisited his old haunts on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève, and was amused to find his old school-companions just where and as he had left them. “They did not seem to have advanced an inch towards disposing of the old questions, nor to have added one new proposition.” He, in his three years of healthy meditation in the country, had discovered that their dialectics, however useful as a help to other studies, were in themselves but a fruitless and lifeless system; he therefore now gave himself up to the study of theology under a certain Master Gilbert, Robert “Pullus”--in whom one is tempted to recognize the Robert Pulein who had planted the seed of the first English University by his divinity-lectures at Oxford in 1133--and lastly, Simon of Poissy.

[1565] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol.
v. pp. 78–80). Adam’s nationality appears in l. iii. c.
3 (p. 129), where he is described as “noster ille Anglus
Peripateticus Adam.”

[1566] See below, p. 492, 493.

[1567] Wright, _Biogr. Britt. Lit._, vol. ii. pp. 245, 246.

[1568] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v.
pp. 80, 81).

[1569] On Peter of Celle see Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. ccii.
cols. 399, 400, and _Gall. Christ._, vol. xii. col. 543.

[1570] Cf. Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxxxii. and cxliii. (Giles, vol.
i. pp. 114, 206); and see also Demimuid, _Jean de Salisbury_,
pp. 26, 27.

[1571] “Reversus itaque in fine triennii.” Joh. Salisb.
_Metalog._ as above (p. 81).

[1572] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 114).

John’s whole career in the schools, after occupying about twelve years,[1573] apparently came to an end shortly before the council of Reims. His old friend Peter had already retired into the peace of the cloister, and about this time became abbot of Celle, near Troyes. There John, who was utterly without means of living, found a shelter and a home, nominally, it seems, in the capacity of Peter’s “clerk” or secretary, but in reality as the recipient of a generous hospitality which sought for no return save the enjoyment of his presence and his friendship.[1574] Such a light as John’s, however, could not long remain thus hidden under a bushel. So felt Peter himself;[1575] and at that moment a better place for it was easily found. At the council of Reims, or during his exile after it, the archbishop of Canterbury probably met the abbot of Celle and his English “clerk”;[1576] he certainly must have met the abbot of Clairvaux; and S. Bernard, with his unerring instinct, had already discovered John’s merits. He named him to Theobald in terms of commendation; and it was he who furnished the letter of introduction,[1577] as it was Peter who furnished the means,[1578] wherewith John at last made his way to the archbishop’s court,[1579] of which he soon became one of the busiest and most valued members. So busy was he--so “distracted with diverse and adverse occupations,” as he himself said--that he complained of being scarce able to steal an hour for the literary and philosophical pursuits which he so dearly loved. Ten times in the next thirteen years[1580] did he cross the Alps, twice did he visit Apulia, on business with the Roman court for his superiors or his friends; besides travelling all over England and Gaul on a variety of errands, and fulfilling a crowd of home-duties which left him scarcely time to look after his own private affairs, much less to indulge in study.[1581] The greater part of the communications between Theobald and Eugene III. must have passed through his hands, either as messenger or as amanuensis; but his name never figures in their diplomatic history; his place therein was a subordinate one. It was not in his nature to take the foremost rank. Not that he was unfit for it:--with his gracious, genial temper; his calm clear judgement, generally sound because always disinterested; his delicate wit, his easy, elegant scholarship, and his wide practical experience of the world--John of Salisbury might have adorned far higher positions in either Church or state than any which he ever actually occupied. But his own position was a thing of which he seems never to have thought, save as a means of serving others. His apology for his unwilling neglect of literature--“I am a man under authority”[1582]--might have been the motto of his life. He left it to others to lead; if they led in the way of righteousness, they might be sure of one faithful adherent who would serve and follow them through good report and evil report, who would try to clear the path before them at any risk to himself; who would criticize their conduct and tell them of their errors with fearless simplicity, while striving to avert the consequence of those errors and to cover their retreat; who in poverty and exile, incurred for another’s sake, would make light of his own sufferings and be constantly endeavouring to relieve those of his fellow-sufferers, and who would always find or make a silver lining to the darkest cloud. This was what John did for the possible acquaintance of his early student-days whom he had now rejoined in the household of Archbishop Theobald. To the end of his life he was more than satisfied to count the friendship of Thomas Becket as his chief title of honour, and to let whatever share of lustre might have been his own go to brighten the aureole of his friend. It brightened it far more than he knew. When detractors and panegyrists have both done their worst, there remains this simple proof of the real worth of Thomas--that he inspired such devotion as this in a man such as John of Salisbury, and that he knew how to appreciate it as it deserved.

[1573] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. p.
81).

[1574] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117). Pet.
Cell. Epp. lxvii.–lxxv. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. ccii. cols.
513–522).

[1575] Pet. Cell. Ep. lxx. (as above, col. 516).

[1576] The _Historia Pontificalis_, certainly the work of one
who was present at this council, is attributed to John.

[1577] S. Bern. Ep. ccclxi. (Mabillon, vol. i. col. 325).

[1578] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117).

[1579] From the Prologue to the _Polycraticus_, l. i. (_Joh.
Salisb. Opp._, Giles, vol. iii. p. 13), it appears that at the
time of writing it John had been twelve years at the court. As
the _Polycraticus_ was written during the war of Toulouse, this
takes us back to 1148. He must in fact have joined Theobald
very soon after the council of Reims.

[1580] He himself makes it twenty years (Joh. Salisb.
_Metalog._, prolog. l. iii., Giles, vol. v. p. 113); but
he cannot possibly have left Paris before 1147, and the
_Metalogicus_ was finished before Theobald’s death in 1161.
Either there is something wrong in John’s reckoning, or in his
copyist’s reading of it, or this passage was added some years
after the completion of the book.

[1581] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._ as above.

[1582] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, prolog. l. vii. (Giles, vol.
iv. p. 80).

It was however John’s friendship with Nicolas of Langley which in these years of his residence in the primate’s household made him so valuable to Theobald as a medium of communication with Rome. We can hardly doubt that this acquaintance, too, had begun in Paris; now, as the English cardinal-secretary and the envoy of the English primate discussed in the Roman court the prospects of their common mother-country and mother-Church, their acquaintance ripened into a friendship which no change of outward circumstances could alter or disturb. Nicolas cared more for John than for his own nearest relatives; he declared in public and in private that he loved him above all men living; he delighted in unburthening his soul to him. When he became Pope there was no change; a visit from John was still Adrian’s greatest pleasure; he rejoiced in welcoming him to his table, and despite John’s modest remonstrances insisted that they should be served from the same dish and flagon.[1583] King and primate were both alike quick to perceive and use such an opportunity of strengthening the alliance between England and Rome; while Adrian on his part was all the more ready to give a cordial response to overtures made to him from the land of his birth, when they came through the lips of his dearest friend. As a matter of course, it was John who very soon after the accession of Henry II. was sent to obtain a Papal authorization for the king’s projected conquest of Ireland.[1584] Naturally, too, it was John who now became Theobald’s private secretary and confidential medium of communication with Pope Adrian. A considerable part of the correspondence which goes under John’s name really consists of the archbishop’s letters, John himself being merely the amanuensis. This part of his work, however, was a relaxation which he only enjoyed at intervals; he was still constantly on active duty of some kind or other not only at the court of the primate but also at that of the king; and sorely did he long to escape from its weary trifling, to find rest for his soul in the pursuit of that “divine philosophy” which had been the delight of his youth.[1585] But obedience, not inclination, had brought him to court, and obedience kept him there. Thomas knew his worth and would not let him go; at last, to pacify his uneasiness, he bade him relieve his mind by pouring it out in a book. John protested he had scarce time to call his soul his own, much less his intellect or his hands.[1586] He was, however, set free by the removal of the court over sea for the expedition against Toulouse; and while Thomas was riding in coat of mail at the head of his troops against Count Raymond and King Louis, John was writing his _Polycraticus_ in the quiet cloisters of Canterbury.[1587]

[1583] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p.
205).

[1584] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v.
pp. 205, 206).

[1585] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.
iii. p. 13).

[1586] _Ib._ l. vii. prolog. (vol. iv. p. 80).

[1587] _Ib._ l. i. prolog. (vol. iii. p. 16). Cf. _ib._ l.
viii. c. 24 (vol. iv. p. 379).

This book of _Polycraticus on the Triflings of Courtiers and the Foot-prints of Philosophers_[1588] is a strange medley of moral and political speculations, personal experiences, and reflections upon men and things, old and new. Its greatest charm lies in the revelation of the writer’s pure, sweet, child-like character, shining unconsciously through the veil of his scholastic pedantries and rambling metaphysics; its historical value consists in the light which it throws on the social condition of England with respect to a crowd of matters which the chroniclers leave wholly in the dark. “Part of it,” says the author in his dedication, “deals with the trifles of the court; laying most stress on those which have chiefly called it forth. Part treats of the foot-prints of the philosophers, leaving, however, the wise to decide for themselves in each case what is to be shunned and what to be followed.”[1589] We need not weary ourselves with John’s meditations upon Aristotle and Plato and their scholastic commentators; they all come round to one simple conclusion--that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the love of Him the end of all true philosophy.[1590] It is in the light of this truth that he looks at the practical questions of the day, and reviews those “trifles of the court” which are really the crying abuses of the government, the ecclesiastical administration, and society at large. In the forefront of all he does not hesitate, although dedicating his book to the chancellor whose passion for hunting almost equalled that of the king himself, to set the inordinate love of the chase and the cruelties of the forest-law.[1591] The tardiness of the royal justice and the corruption of the judges--“_justitiæ errantes_, justices errant are they rightly called who go erring from the path of equity in pursuit of greed and gain”[1592]--was also, after seven years of Henry’s government, still a ground of serious complaint. So, too, was the decay of valour among the young knighthood of the day--a consequence of the general relaxation of discipline, first during the years of anarchy, and then in the reaction produced by the unbroken peace which England had enjoyed since Henry’s accession. Chivalry was already falling back from its lofty ideal; military exercises were neglected for the pleasures and luxury of the court; the making of a knight, in theory a matter almost as solemn as the making of a priest, was sinking into a mere commonplace formality;[1593] and the consequences were beginning to be felt on the Welsh border.[1594] John was moved to contrast the present insecurity of the marches with their splendid defence in Harold’s time,[1595] and to lament that William the Conqueror, in his desire to make his little insular world share the glories of the greater world beyond the sea, had allowed the naturally rich and self-sufficing island to be flooded with luxuries of which it had no need, and thus fostered rather than checked the indolent disposition which had helped to bring its people under his sway.[1596]

[1588] _Polycraticus de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis
Philosophorum._

[1589] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.
iii. p. 13).

[1590] This is the idea which runs through the whole of
_Polycraticus_, and indeed through all John’s writings. It is
neatly expressed in two lines of his _Entheticus_ (vv. 305,
306, Giles, vol. v. p. 248):

“Si verus Deus est hominum sapientia vera, Tunc amor est veri
philosophia Dei.”

[1591] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. c. 4 (Giles, vol. iii.
pp. 19–32).

[1592] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (p. 322). Cf. cc. 10, 11 (pp.
300–311). Pet. Blois, Ep. xcv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 297), makes a
like play on the title of the judges.

[1593] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. cc. 2, 3, 5, 8–10
(Giles, vol. iv. pp. 8–12, 15, 16, 20–23).

[1594] _Ib._ cc. 6, 16 (pp. 16, 17, 39, 40).

[1595] _Ib._ c. 6 (p. 18).

[1596] _Ib._ l. viii. c. 7 (p. 238).

The ills of the state had each its counterpart in the Church; the extortions and perversions of justice committed by the secular judges were paralleled by those of the ecclesiastical officials, deans and archdeacons;[1597] and at the bottom of the mischief lay the old root of all evil. Simony was indeed no longer public; spiritual offices were no longer openly bought with hard cash; but they were bought with court-interest instead;[1598] the Church’s most sacred offices were filled by men who came straight from the worldly life of the court to a charge for which they were utterly unfit;[1599] although, in deference to public opinion, they were obliged to go through an elaborate shew of reluctance, and Scripture and hagiology were ransacked for examples of converted sinners, which were always found sufficient to meet any objections against a candidate for consecration and to justify any appointment, however outrageous.[1600] All the sins of the worldly churchmen, however, scarcely move John’s pure soul to such an outburst of scathing sarcasm as he pours upon the “false brethren” who sought their advancement in a more subtle way, by a shew of counterfeit piety:--the ultra-monastic, ultra-ascetic school, with their overdone zeal and humility, and their reliance on those pernicious exemptions from diocesan jurisdiction which the religious orders vied with each other in procuring from Rome, and which were destroying all discipline and subverting all rightful authority.[1601]

[1597] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. pp. 327, 328).

[1598] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 18 (vol. iv. pp. 149, 152).

[1599] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. p. 329).

[1600] _Ib._ l. vii. cc. 18, 19 (vol. iv. pp. 149–152, 156–158).

[1601] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv.
pp. 169–178). It is to be noted that the two orders which John
considers to be least infected with this hypocrisy are those of
the Chartreuse and of Grandmont. _Ib._ c. 23 (pp. 180, 181).

Over against the picture of the world and the Church as they actually were, the disciple of Archbishop Theobald sets his ideal of both as they should be--as the primate and his children aimed at making them. For John’s model commonwealth, built up in a somewhat disjointed fashion on a foundation partly of Holy Writ and partly of classic antiquity, is not, like the great Utopia of the sixteenth century, the product of one single, exceptionally constituted mind; it is a reflection of the plans and hopes of those among whom John lived and worked, and thus it helps us to see something of the line of thought which had guided their action in the past and which moulded their schemes for the future. Like all medieval theorists, they began at the uppermost end of the social and political scale; they started from a definite view of the rights and duties of the king, as the head on which all the lower members of the body politic depended. The divine right of kings, the divine ordination of the powers that be, were fundamental doctrines which they understood in a far wider and loftier sense than the king-worshippers of the seventeenth century:--which they employed not to support but to combat the perverted theory that “the sovereign’s will has the force of law,” already creeping in through the influence of the imperial jurisprudence;[1602]--and which were no less incompatible with the principle of invariable hereditary succession. “Lands and houses and suchlike things must needs descend to the next in blood; but the government of a people is to be given only to him whom God has chosen thereto, even to him who has God’s Spirit within him and God’s law ever before his eyes.... Not that for the mere love of change it is lawful to forsake the blood of princes, to whom by the privilege of the divine promises and by the natural claims of birth the succession of their children is justly due, if only they walk according to right. Neither, if they turn aside from the right way, are they to be immediately cast off, but patiently admonished till it become evident that they are obstinate in their wickedness”[1603]--then, and then only, shall the axe be laid to the root of the corrupt tree, and it shall cumber the ground no more.[1604]

[1602] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 7 (vol. iii. p. 241).

[1603] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. v. c. 6 (Giles, vol. iii.
p. 278).

[1604] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 12 (pp. 259, 260).

Such was the moral which the wisest and most thoughtful minds in England drew from the lessons of the anarchy. On a like principle, it was in the growth of a more definite and earnest sense of individual duty and responsibility, as opposed to the selfish lawlessness which had so long prevailed, that they trusted for the regeneration of society. They sought to teach the knights to live up to the full meaning of their vows and the true objects of their institution--the protection of the Church, the suppression of treason, the vindication of the rights of the poor, the pacification of the country;[1605] so that the consecration of their swords upon the altar at their investiture should be no empty form, but, according to its original intention, a true symbol of the whole character of their lives and, if need be, of their deaths.[1606] And then side by side with the true knight would stand the true priest:--both alike soldiers of the Cross, fighting in the same cause though with different weapons--figured, according to John’s beautiful application of a text which medieval reformers never wearied of expounding, by the “two swords” which the Master had declared “enough” for His servants, all the lawless undisciplined activity of self-seekers and false brethren being merely the “swords and staves” of the hostile multitude.[1607] Into a detailed examination of the rights or the duties of the various classes of the people no one in those days thought it necessary to enter; their well-being and well-doing were regarded as dependent upon those of their superiors, and the whole question of the relation between rulers and ruled--“head and feet,” according to the simile which John borrows from Plutarch--was solved by the comprehensive formula, “Every one members one of another.”[1608] To watch over and direct the carrying-out of this principle was the special work of the clergy; and the clerical reformers were jealous for the rights of their order because, as understood by them, they represented and covered the rights of the whole nation; the claims which they put forth in the Church’s name were a protest in behalf of true civil and religious liberty against tyranny on the one hand and license on the other.[1609] “For there is nothing more glorious than freedom, save virtue; if indeed freedom may rightly be severed from virtue--for all who know anything aright know that true freedom has no other source.”[1610]

[1605] _Ib._ l. vi. c. 8 (vol. iv. p. 21).

[1606] _Ibid._ c. 10 (p. 23). Cf. Pet. Blois, Ep. xciv. (Giles,
vol. i. pp. 291–296).

[1607] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 8 (Giles, vol. iv.
p. 21). John’s use of the text is perhaps only a generalization
from S. Bernard’s application of it to Suger and the count of
Nevers, left regents of France in 1149. Odo of Deuil, _Rer.
Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 93.

[1608] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 20 (as above, pp.
51, 52).

[1609] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 20 (pp. 161–169).

[1610] _Ibid._ c. 25 (p. 192).

How far these lofty views had made their way into the high places of the Church it was as yet scarcely possible to judge. The tone of the English episcopate had certainly undergone a marked change for the better during the last six years of Stephen’s reign. Theobald’s hopes must, however, have been chiefly in the rising generation. Of the existing bishops there was only one really capable of either helping or hindering the work which the primate had at heart; for Henry of Winchester, although his royal blood, his stately personality and his long and memorable career necessarily made him to his life’s end an important figure in both Church and state, had ceased to take an active part in the affairs of either, and for several years lived altogether away from England, in his boyhood’s home at Cluny.[1611] A far more weighty element in the calculations of the reforming party was the character and policy of the bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Foliot. From the circumstances in which we find Gilbert’s relatives in England,[1612] it seems probable that he belonged to one of the poorer Norman families of knightly rank who came over either in the train of the great nobles of the conquest or in the more peaceful immigration under Henry I. His youth is lost in obscurity; of his education we know nothing, save by its fruits. Highly gifted as he unquestionably was by nature, even his inborn genius could hardly have enabled him to acquire his refined and varied scholarship, his unrivalled mastery of legal, political and ecclesiastical lore, his profound and extensive knowledge of men and things, anywhere but in some one or other of the universities of the day. It is curious that although Gilbert’s extant correspondence is one of the most voluminous of the time--extending over nearly half a century, and addressed to persons of the most diverse ranks, parties, professions and nationalities--it contains not one allusion to the studies or the companions of his youth, not one of those half playful, half tender reminiscences of student-triumphs, student-troubles and student-friendships, which were so fresh in the hearts and in the letters of many distinguished contemporaries. Only from an appeal made to him, when bishop of London, in behalf of his old benefactor’s orphan and penniless children, do we learn that he had once been the favourite pupil, the ward, almost the adoptive son, of a certain Master Adam.[1613] It is tempting, but perhaps hardly safe, to conjecture that this Master Adam was the learned Englishman of that name who in like manner befriended another young fellow-countryman, John of Salisbury, when he too was studying in Paris.[1614] This, however, was not till Gilbert Foliot’s student-days had long been past. Wherever his youth may have been spent, wherever his reputation may have been acquired, the one was quite over and the other was fully established before 1139, when he had been already for some years a monk of Cluny, had attained the rank of prior in the mother-house, and had thence been promoted to become the head of the dependent priory of Abbeville.[1615]

[1611] He went there in 1155 (Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._), and
does not reappear in England till March 1159 (Palgrave, _Eng.
Commonwealth_, vol. ii. p. xii).

[1612] See his letters _passim_.

[1613] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. dxv., dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp.
323, 324, 326). The writer of the first is “Ranulfus de
Turri”; the second is anonymous. Both appeal earnestly to
the bishop’s charity and gratitude in behalf of “J. filius
A. magistri quondam vestri, procuratoris vestri, tutoris
vestri.... Hæreat animo sanctitatis vestræ illa M. Adæ circa
vos curarum gravitas, alimoniæ fœcunditas, diligentia doctrinæ,
specialis impensa benivolentiæ. Quis hodie proprios liberos
regit providentius, educat uberius, instruit attentius, diligit
ferventius? Sic pæne amor ille modum excessit, ut vos diligeret
non quasi excellenter, sed quasi singulariter ... qui vos
aliquando pro filio adoptavit” (Ep. dxv.). “Tangat memoriam
vestram illa M. Adæ circa vos curarum gravitas, doctrinæ
profunditas, alimoniæ ubertas, postremo fervens, immo ardens
caritas. Hæreat animo vestro quantâ curâ, quali amplexu, quam
speciali privilegio, illa doctoris vestri, procuratoris,
tutoris, diligens vigilantia vos non modo supra familiares,
verum supra quoslibet mortales adoptaverit, qualiterque ejus
spiritus in vestro, ut ita dicam, spiritu quieverit.” Ep. dxvii.

[1614] See above, p. 482. In any case, Gilbert’s Master Adam
is surely a somewhat interesting person, of whom one would
like to know more. This was the condition of his eldest son,
when commended to the gratitude of Gilbert: “Pater ejus cum
fati munus impleret, filium reliquit ære alieno gravatum,
fratrum numerositate impeditum, redituum angustiis constrictum,
et quibusdam aliis nexibus intricatum.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep.
dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. p. 326). “Onerant enim eum supra modum
redituum angustiæ, debitorum paternorum sarcinæ, amicorum
raritas, fratrum sororumque pluralitas et reliquæ sarcinæ
parentelæ.” Ep. dxv. (_ib._ p. 323).

[1615] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cclxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 366).

In 1139 the abbot of S. Peter’s at Gloucester died; Miles the constable, the lord of Gloucester castle and sheriff of the county, and the greatest man of the district after Earl Robert himself, secured the vacant office for Gilbert Foliot,[1616] who was a family connexion of his own.[1617] The abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester, founded as a nunnery in the seventh century, changed into a college of secular priests after the Danish wars, and finally settled as a house of Benedictine monks in the reign of Cnut, had risen to wealth and fame under its first Norman abbot, Serlo, some of whose work still survives in the nave of his church, now serving as the cathedral church of Gloucester. Gloucester itself, the capital of Earl Robert’s territories, was still, like Hereford and Shrewsbury, a border-city whose inhabitants had to be constantly on their guard against the thievery and treachery of the Welsh, who, though often highly useful to their English earl as auxiliary forces in war, were anything but loyal subjects or trustworthy neighbours. The position of abbot of S. Peter’s therefore was at all times one of some difficulty and anxiety; and Gilbert entered upon it at a specially difficult and anxious time. Stephen’s assent to his appointment can hardly have been prompted by favour to Miles, who had openly defied the king a year ago; he may have been influenced by fear of giving fresh offence to such a formidable deserter, or he may simply have been, as we are told, moved by the report of Gilbert’s great merits.[1618] The new abbot proved quite worthy of his reputation. His bitterest enemies always admitted that he was a pattern of monastic discipline and personal asceticism; and his admirable judgement, moderation and prudence soon made him a personage of very high authority in the counsels of the English Church. Holding such an important office in the city which was the head-quarters of the Empress’s party throughout the greater part of the civil war, he of course had his full share of the troubles of the anarchy, whereof Welsh inroads counted among the least. There is no doubt that in bringing him to England Miles had, whether intentionally or not, brought over one who sympathized strongly with the Angevin cause; but Gilbert’s sympathies led him into no political partizanship. During his nine years’ residence at Gloucester he consistently occupied the position which seems to have been his ideal through life: that of a churchman pure and simple, attached to no mere party in either Church or state, but ready to work with each and all for the broad aims of ecclesiastical order and national tranquillity. That these aims came at last to be identified with the success of the Angevin party was a result of circumstances over which Gilbert had no control. He was honoured, consulted and trusted by the most diverse characters among the bishops. Mere abbot of a remote monastery as he was, Nigel of Ely was glad to be recommended by him to Pope Celestine, Jocelyn of Salisbury to Lucius, and Alexander of Lincoln to Eugene III.[1619] He was treated almost as an equal not only by his own diocesan Bishop Simon of Worcester, by his neighbour Robert of Hereford, and by Jocelyn of Salisbury, but even by the archbishop of Canterbury and the legate Henry of Winchester; and he writes in the tone of a patron and adviser to Bishop Uhtred of Landaff and to the heads of the religious houses on the Welsh border.[1620] He seems indeed to have been the usual medium of communication between the Church in the western shires and its primate at far-off Canterbury, who evidently found him a trustworthy and useful agent in managing the very troublesome Church affairs of the Welsh marches during the civil war.

[1616] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 114. _Hist.
Monast. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1617] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162.

[1618] Flor. Worc. Contin., a. 1139 (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 114).
_Hist. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1619] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. v., xi., xxv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 12,
22, 37).

[1620] See his correspondence while abbot of Gloucester; _Gilb.
Foliot Opp._ (Giles), vol. i. pp. 3–94.

When at last the storm subsided and a turn of the tide came with the spring of 1148, Theobald openly shewed his confidence in the abbot of Gloucester by commanding his attendance on that journey to Reims which the king had forbidden, and which was therefore looked upon as the grand proclamation of ecclesiastical independence, as well as of devotion to the house of Anjou. Gilbert, with characteristic caution, excused himself on the plea that the troubles of his house urgently required his presence at home;[1621] but he ended by going nevertheless,[1622] and when his friend Bishop Robert of Hereford--one of the three prelates whom Stephen had permitted to attend the council of Reims--died during its session, the Pope and the primate rewarded Gilbert with the succession to the vacant see.[1623] For his perjury in doing homage to Stephen for its temporalities after swearing to hold them only of Henry Fitz-Empress he may be supposed to have quieted his conscience with the plea that there was no other means of securing them for Henry’s benefit;--a plea which Henry, after some delay,[1624] found it wise to accept. The heads of the Angevin party knew indeed that Gilbert regarded all homage to Stephen as simply null and void; he had just written it plainly to Brian Fitz-Count, when criticizing Brian’s apology for the Empress, in a letter[1625] which, we may be very sure, must have been handed about and studied among her friends as a much more valuable document than the pamphlet which had called it forth.

[1621] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. vi., vii. (_ib._ pp. 13, 14).

[1622] He writes--evidently from the spot--a report of the
council of Reims to Robert archdeacon of Lincoln; Gilb. Foliot,
Ep. lxxvi. (as above, p. 92). In July he was at Arras with
Theobald: Ep. lxxiii. (_ib._ p. 89).

[1623] See above, pp. 370, 371.

[1624] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. xc., cxxx. (as above, pp. 116, 170).