Chapter VIII: The Bishop (3)

But the most important of their functions was that which is technically called _iurisdictio fori interni_, their jurisdiction in matters of conscience, their dealing with the motives and feelings, rather than the acts of men. This—which practically they exercised through the several presbyters who were, for the general convenience, dispersed over the face of the country,—was the true source of their power, and measure of their social influence. Positive law deals only with the actions of men, and then only when they are perfected or completed: religion regulates the inward impulses from which those actions spring, and its authority extends both before and beyond them: intention, not act, is its proper province. But the secret intentions and motives of men are known perfectly to God alone; the man himself may, and often does possess but an indistinct and fallacious notion of his own impulses; and as it is in these, rather than in the acts which are their results, that the essence of guilt lies, the Christian was taught to unbosom himself to one of more experienced and disciplined feelings;—one whose profession was to console the distracted sinner, and who, on genuine repentance, was empowered to announce the glad tidings of reconciliation with God. Confession of sins was the mode pointed out by the founder of the church, to obtain the blessings of almighty mercy; but how were the ignorant, the obstinate, or the despairing to know the right manner of such confession? How could they know in what form confession was effectually to be made to God? How could they, plunged in sin and foulness, dare to approach the source of all purity and holiness? What hope could the grovelling outcast have of being admitted to the throne of his glorious King, even for the purpose of renouncing his state of rebellion and apostasy? But the glorious King was a merciful sovereign, who had commissioned certain of his servants, reconciled sinners themselves, to be intermediaries between his own majesty and the terror-stricken offender: they had been sent forth armed with full power to receive the submission which the guilty feared to offer to Himself in person, furnished with instructions as to the exact mode in which the satisfactory propitiation was to be made. These commissioners were the especial body of the clergy,—the successors and representatives of the Levitical Priests under the Law,—the offerers of the sacrifices,—to whom the spirit of God had been exclusively communicated in the ceremony of their ordination, and who thereby became possessors of the divine authority, to bind and loose, to forgive sins on earth and in the world to come. The clergy therefore undertook to direct the suffering and heart-broken outlaw to the throne of peace. Again, as the merely human preacher of atonement possessed of himself no means of ascertaining the genuineness of repentance, a system of penances was established which might serve as a test of the penitent’s earnestness: and too soon a miserable error grew up that, by submitting to self-inflicted punishments, the sinner might diminish the weight of the penalties which he had earned in a future state. But he might exceed or fall short of the just measure, if not duly weighed and apportioned by those who were in possession of the divine will in that respect: men had even without their own knowledge become holy and justified by their works of self-abasement and humiliation and charity: such men might exceed the necessary limit of penance and mortification:—happily for the sinner and the saint, the priest had a code of instructions at hand by which the difficulties in all cases could be readily adjusted.

These codes of instructions, known by the names of Confessionalia, Poenitentialia, Modus imponendi Poenitentiam, and the like, were compiled by the bishops, to whom the _iurisdictio fori interni_ was exclusively competent, as soon as the episcopal system became firmly settled. The presbyter exercised it only as the bishop’s vicar, when it became inconvenient for the penitent to visit a distant cathedral or metropolis. The episcopal right was open to every bishop: each one might, if he dared, embody his own ideas on the subject in a code, which would derive its authority from conformity to the recognised customs of the church, the personal reputation of its author, and the general acceptance by his episcopal peers throughout the world. The differing circumstances of differing states of society required skilful adaptation of general rules; and therefore any bishop who felt in his conscience that he was qualified for the task, might bring the light of his wisdom to the consideration of this weighty matter, and make such regulations as to himself seemed good, for the management of his own diocese,—certain that, if the blessing of God rested upon his endeavours, his views would be widely circulated and adopted by his neighbours. There is perhaps no more melancholy evidence in existence of the vanity and worthlessness of human endeavours than the celebrated works which thus arose in various parts of Europe; and nothing can demonstrate more strikingly the folly and wickedness of squaring and shaping the unlimited mercy of God by the rule and measure of mere human intelligence. With the contents of these Poenitentials we have of course not here to deal; but I am bound to say that I know of no more fatal sources of antichristian error, no more miserable records of the debasement and degradation of human intellect, no more frightful proofs of the absence of genuine religion. It was the evil tendency of those barbarous early ages not to be satisfied with the simple promises of divine mercy, and faith was clouded and confused by the crowd of incongruous images which were raised between itself and its all-glorious object. At one time terrified by the consciousness of sin, at another deluded by the cheap hope of ceremonial justification, the human race eagerly rushed to multiply the means of salvation, and franticly rejoiced in the establishment of a host of mediators between themselves and their crucified Redeemer, between the frightened but unconverted sinner, and his offended Lord and Maker. The pure Word of God was not then, as it now is, accessible to every reader; and those whose duty it was to proclaim what the mass of men could not obtain access to themselves, had erred into a devious labyrinth of traditions, through which the weary wayfarer circled and circled in endless, objectless gyrations, at every turn more distant only from the goal he pursued. Pure and good were no doubt the objects sought by Cummian, and Theodore and Ælfríc, and pious the spirit in which they wrought; but the foundation of their house was upon sand, and when the rains fell and the tempests roared around it vanished in a moment from before the sight of God and man, never to be reconstructed, even until the closing of the ages.

The sources of revenue by which the bishops supported their temporal power will be considered in a subsequent chapter: it is enough that we find them to have been amply endowed with fitting means, in every part of Europe. During the Anglosaxon period, poverty and self-denial were not the characteristics of the class, however they may have distinguished certain members of the body. Nor will the philosophical enquirer see cause for regret in this: far more will he rejoice in the establishment of any system which tends to draw closer the bonds of intercourse between the clerical and lay members of the church, which leads to the identification of their worldly as well as their eternal interests, and unites them in one harmonious work of praise and thanksgiving, one active service of worship and charity and love, before the face of Him in whom they are united as one holy priesthood. It is the separation of the clergy from the laity, as a class, to which the world owes so many ages of misery and error; and to the comparative union of both orders in the church, we may perhaps attribute the general quiet which, in these respects, characterized the Anglosaxon polity. On these points of separation I shall also have something to say hereafter; but for the present one more subject alone remains to be treated of in this chapter, the last but not least remarkable function of the episcopal authority and power. By far the most important point of the public ecclesiastical jurisdiction,—for the _iurisdictio fori interni_ is quite another thing,—lay in the questions of marriage, which were especially reserved for the bishop’s cognizance. The prohibitions which the clergy enforced were obviously unknown to the strict Teutonic law, which permitted considerable licence in these respects. From Tacitus we learn that a sort of polygamy was not unknown on the part of the princes; it was probably looked upon as a useful mode of increasing the alliances of the tribe[896],—the only conceivable ground on which it could have been allowed by a race so strict in the observance of marriage. We do not know within what degrees the Germans permitted unions which the Roman clergy considered incestuous, but we do know that Gregory considered a relaxation of the strict rule necessary to the success of Augustine in Britain; that he gave the missionary positive instructions upon the subject, and, when blamed by his episcopal brother of Messina for this concession, justified his course by the danger which he apprehended for his plan of conversion, if the prejudices of the Saxons on so vital a point were too hastily shocked[897]. From these directions of Gregory we learn not only that the marriage of first cousins was common, but—what is much more surprising—that the marriage with a father’s widow was so likewise. Nor can we doubt this, when we not only find recorded cases of its occurrence, but when we have a Teutonic king distinctly affirming it to be the legal custom of his people: in the sixth century Ermengisl king of the Varni can say, “Let Radiger my son marry his step-mother, even as our national custom permits[898];” and therefore when we find Beda speaking of a similar marriage, and declaring Eádbald to have been “fornicatione pollutus tali qualem nec inter gentes auditam Apostolus testatur, ita ut uxorem patris haberet[899],” or Asser on another such occasion saying that it was “contra Dei interdictum, et Christianorum dignitatem, nec non et contra omnium Paganorum consuetudinem,” we can only suppose that they either did not know, or that they deemed it advisable not to recognise, the ancient heathen practice.

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Footnote 896:

“Nam prope soli barbarorum singulis uxoribus contenti sunt, exceptis
admodum paucis, qui non libidine, sed ob nobilitatem plurimis nuptiis
ambiuntur.” Tac. Germ. xviii.

Footnote 897:

See Felix’s letter, Bed. Op. Min. ii. 239. He not only expresses his
own surprise, but adds that other clergymen had been greatly disturbed
by Gregory’s departure from the rule of the church: “non modicum
murmur super hac re nobiscum versatur.” Gregory replies in some
detail, and especially says: “Quod autem scripsi Augustino, Anglorum
gentis episcopo, alumno videlicet, ut recordaris, tuo, de
consanguinitatis coniunctione, ipsi et Anglorum genti, quae nuper ad
fidem venerat, ne a bono quod coeperat metuendo austeriora recederet,
specialiter et non generaliter caeteris me scripsisse cognoscas.” Bed.
Op. Min. ii. 242. The following are the directions referred
to:—“Quinta interrogatio Augustini. Usque ad quotam generationem
fideles debeant cum propinquis sibi coniugio copulari? et novercis et
cognatis si liceat copulari coniugio? Respondit Gregorius. Quaedam
terrena lex in Romana republica permittit ut, sive frater et soror,
seu duorum fratrum germanorum, vel duarum sororum filius et filia
misceantur; sed experimento didicimus ex tali coniugio sobolem non
posse succrescere, et Sacra Lex prohibet cognationis turpitudinem
revelare. Unde necesse est ut iam tertia vel quarta generatio fidelium
licenter sibi iungi debeat; nam secunda, quam praediximus, a se omni
modo debet abstinere. Cum noverca autem miscere grave est facinus,
quia et in Lege scriptum est, ‘Turpitudinem patris tui non
revelabis’.... Quia vero sunt multi in Anglorum gente qui, dum adhuc
in infidelitate essent, huic nefando coniugio dicuntur admixti, ad
fidem venientes admonendi sunt ut se abstineant et grave hoc esse
peccatum cognoscant.” The correspondence with Felix apparently refers
to further regulations on the subject which are no longer found in the
copies of Gregory’s answers to Augustine.

Footnote 898:

Ῥαδίγερ δὲ ὁ παῖς ξυνοικιζέσθω τῇ μητρυιᾷ τὸ λοιπὸν τῇ αἰτοῦ, καθάπερ
ὁ πάτριος ἡμῖν ἐφίησι νόμος. Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20.

Footnote 899:

Hist. Eccl. ii. 5. The words of St. Paul, here referred to, are in 1
Cor. v. 1. Asser, Vit. Ælf. 858. The very words of Beda himself seem
to prove that Eádbald’s marriage was closely connected with
heathendom,—perhaps was intended to be a public profession of it. He
says that the king, being terrified by Laurentius’s account of a
miraculous vision he had had, “anathematizato omni idolatriae cultu,
abdicato connubio non legitimo, suscepit fidem Christi, et baptizatus
aecclesiae rebus quantum valuit, in omnibus consulere et favere
curavit.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 6. In fact the politics of that day seem
generally to have consisted in the apostasy of a converted king’s
successor. The heathen priests could hardly be expected to yield quite
without a struggle. The cases are curious enough to merit a detailed
record. What the age of Æðelberht’s second wife may have been is
unknown to us; but there is some probability that Æðelwulf’s marriage
was never really consummated, that it was never a marriage at all.
Judith can hardly have been more than twelve when Æðelwulf married
her, and within two years he died.

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In both the cases referred to, the obvious scandal was put a stop to by the separation of the parties[900],—Eádbald being evidently led to this step by superstitious fears, rather than submitting to an episcopal authority exercised by Laurentius. It is certainly strange in the case of Æðelbald, if there really were a separation, that we hear nothing of the interference of the Church to produce so important an event.

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Footnote 900:

Eádbald’s divorce is recorded, as we have seen, by Beda. Æðelbald’s
rests on much less sure authority,—that only of Matthew Westminster,
and Rudborne, Annal. Winton. Judith, after her return to France,
eloped with Baldwin of Flanders, to whom she bore Matilda, William the
Conqueror’s wife. See Warnkönig, Hist. Fland. i. 144.

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We learn that by degrees the time arrived at which the clergy thought themselves strong enough to insist upon a stricter observance of the canonical prohibitions, and various instances are on record where their intervention is mentioned, to separate persons too nearly connected by blood. It is probable that many more of these are intended than we actually know; for unhappily the monkish writers are over-fond of using strong expressions both of praise and blame, and not rarely fling _pellex scortum_ and _concubina_ at the heads of women who were for all that, legally speaking, very honest wives. One celebrated case has obtained a worldwide reputation,—that of Eádwig, the details of whose unhappy fate will probably for ever remain a mystery. Political calculations, and unreconciled national jealousies were in all probability the mainsprings of the events of his troublous life; but that which lends it all its romance—his separation from Ælfgyfu—was the act of a prelate determined upon upholding the ecclesiastical law of marriage. It is to be regretted that we do not know the exact degree of relationship between the royal victims. It may have been too close, in the eyes of the stricter clergy; yet we cannot close our eyes to the fact that it was long acquiesced in by the English nobles; nor, had Eádwig shown himself more pliant to the pretensions of Dúnstán, might we ever have heard of it at all. History, deprived of all its materials, will here fail to do even late justice to the sufferers; but it will not fail to stamp with its enduring brand the brutal conduct of their persecutors[901]. However conscientious may have been the intentions of archbishop Oda, it is to be lamented that a stain of barbarous cruelty attaches to his memory, for the part he took in this transaction. It he found it inevitable, after two years of wedded life further to humiliate his already humbled sovereign, by insisting upon the removal of his young consort, it was not necessary to disfigure her with hot searing-irons, or on her return from exile to put her to a cruel death. The asceticism of the savage churchman seems here to have been embittered by even less worthy considerations.

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Footnote 901:

There cannot be the slightest doubt that Ælfgyfu was Eádwig’s wife, or
that she was separated from him on the ground of too near
consanguinity. The charter, Cod. Dipl. No. 1201, which is in every
respect an authentic document, mentions her as “Ælfgyfu, ðæs cynges
wíf,” the king’s wife; and this, in addition to herself, was witnessed
by her mother Æðelgyfu, by four bishops, and by three principal
noblemen of the court. If that charter be not genuine, there is not
one genuine in the whole Codex Diplomaticus, and I cannot see the
shadow of a reason to question it, as Lingard has done. The reader
will probably be glad to see it, as it occurs in _two_ manuscripts,
the Cotton MSS. Claud. B. vi. fol. 54. and C. ix. fol. 112, one copy
being in the original Saxon, the other a statement in Latin drawn up
from it.

“Ðis is seó gerǽdnes ðe Byrhtelm biscop and Æðelwold abbud hæfdon ymbe hira landgehwerf: ðæt is ðonne ðe se biscop gesealde ða hída æt Cenintúne intó ðǽre cyricean æt Abbendúne tó écan yrfe; and se abbud gesealde ðæt seofontyne hýda æt Crydanbricge ðán biscope tó écnesse, ge on lífe ge æfter lífe; and hí eác ealra þinga gehwyrfdon ge on cwican ceápe ge on óðrum, swá swá hí betwihs him gerǽddon. And ðis wæs Eádwiges leáf cyninges; and ðis syndon ða gewitnessa. Ælfgifu ðæs cininges wíf, and Æðelgyfu, ðæs cyninges wífes módur, Ælfsige biscop, Osulf biscop, Coenwald biscop, Byrhtnóð ealdorman, Ælfheáh cyninges discþegn, Eádríc his bródur.”

“This is the agreement that bishop Byrhthelm and abbot Æðelwold made
about their exchange of lands: that is then, that the bishop gave the
hides at Kennington to the church at Abingdon for an eternal
inheritance; and the abbot gave the bishop the seventeen hides at
Crida’s bridge, for ever both during life and after life: and they also
exchanged every thing upon the lands, both live stock and other, as
they agreed between them. And this was by leave of king Eádwig; and
these are the witnesses: Ælfgyfu the king’s wife, and Æðelgyfu, the
king’s wife’s mother, bishop Ælfsige, bishop Oswulf, bishop Coenwald,
Byrhtnoð the ealdorman, Ælfheáh the king’s dapifer, Eádríc his
brother.”

The Latin abstract of this important document is as follows:—“Dominus
autem abbas Æðelwoldus commutationem eiusdem terrae, id est Cenintun,
concedente eodem rege, egit apud Brihtelmum episcopum. In cuius
vicissitudine ipse episcopus accepit illam villam quae appellatur
Crydanbricge. Testes autem fuerunt huius commutationis Ælfgifa regis
uxor, et Æðelgifa mater eius, Ælfsige episcopus, Osulfus episcopus,
Kenwald episcopus, et multi alii.” The date of this document is 956,
in which year Eádwig came to the throne, and therefore certainly
subsequent to the coronation, the celebrated scene of Dúnstán’s
insolence. The prelates and nobles present were Ælfsige bishop of
Winchester, Oswulf bishop of Ramsbury, Cénwald bishop of Worcester,
Byrhthelm bishop of London, Æðelwald then abbot of Abingdon and
afterwards the celebrated bishop of Winchester—the Father of the
Monks, as he was called; Byrhtnóð the ealdorman an equally decided
patron of the monastic order; Ælfheáh no less a man than the dapifer
regis, or seneschal of Eádwig’s house. This then was not a thing done
in a corner, and the testimony is conclusive that Ælfgyfu was Eádwig’s
queen. It is also beyond doubt that, in the year 958, Oda separated
Eádwig from his wife on the ground of their being too nearly related:
one of the MSS. of the Saxon Chronicle says clearly, “Her on ðissum
geare Oda arcebiscop tótwǽmde Eádwi cyning and Ælfgyfe, forðám ðe hí
wǽron tó gesybbe.” Chron. Sax. an. 958. And Florence of Worcester,
drawing from an independent authority, but evidently confused by the
slanderous tales which had been spread of Eádwig, confirms the
Chronicle, saying:—“Sanctus Odo Doruberniae archiepiscopus regem
Westsaxonum Eádwium et Ælfgivam, vel quia, ut fertur, propinqua illius
extitit, vel quia illam sub propria uxore adamavit, ab invicem
separavit.” Flor. Wig. an. 958. William of Malmesbury speaks of her as
“uxor, proxime cognata” (Gest. Reg. § 147, i. 223), but soon after
calls her _ganea_ and _pellex_ in choice monkish style. Wendover and
Paris are even more insolent in their phraseology, but still there is
the unlucky admission of a marriage:—“Huic [sc. Eádwig] quaedam mulier
inepta, licet natione praecelsa [certainly very high birth indeed if
Ælfgyfu was too near a relative of the king] cum adulta filia per
nefandum familiaritatis lenocinium adhaerebat, ut sese vel filiam suam
sub coniugali titulo sociaret.” Wendov. i. 404. They go on to
insinuate that there was an improper familiarity between the king and
both the women. With this I am not at all concerned: Eádwig may have
been a disorderly young prince, as there have been other disorderly
young princes,—as his much-belauded brother Eádgar _was_ in the
highest degree. The ladies _may_ have been more than commonly
depraved. But it may be observed that our general experience is not in
favour of a wife’s permitting her husband to be guilty of lascivious
conduct towards another woman in her presence, or of a married
daughter’s conniving at her husband’s irregularities with her own
mother. Not a word have we of this disgusting insinuation in the
Chronicle, or Florence,—himself a monk,—or Æðelweard, or Huntingdon:
and the two latter speak of Eádwig in terms very far removed from
those in which the adherents of Dúnstán’s cause have chosen to
characterize him:—“Quin successor eius Eáduuig in regnum, qui et, prae
nimia etenim pulchritudine, Pancali sortitus est nomen a vulgo
secundi. Tenuit namque quadriennio per regnum amandus.” Æðelw.
Chronic. iv. 8. “Rex autem praedictus Edwi non illaudabiliter regni
infulam tenuit. Edwi rex anno regni sui quinto cum in principio regni
eius decentissime floruerit, prospera et laetabunda exordia mors
immatura perrupit.” Hen. Hunt. lib. v. We must be excused for
preferring this sort of record to the interested exaggerations of such
biographers as Bridferð, whom the remainder of his work proves to have
been either a very weak and credulous person or a very great rogue,
or—as not unfrequently happens—perhaps both at once.

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The history of mediæval Europe show’s with what awful effect this tremendous power was wielded by unscrupulous popes and prelates, whenever it suited their purposes not to connive at marriages which, according to their teaching, were incestuous. But amidst the striking cases on record—the cases of kings and nobles—we look in vain for a true measure of the misery which these prohibitions must have entailed upon the humbler members of society, who possessed neither the influence to compel nor the wealth to purchase dispensations from an arbitrary and oppressive rule. The sense and feeling of mankind at once revolt against restrictions for which neither the law of God, nor the dictates of nature supply excuse, and which resting upon a complicated calculation of affinity, were often the means of betraying the innocent and ignorant into a condition of endless wretchedness. But they were invaluable engines of extortion, and instruments of malice; they led to the intervention of the priest with the family, in the most intolerable form; they furnished weapons which could be used with almost irresistible effect against those whom nothing could reach but the tears perhaps and broken heart of a beloved companion. And therefore they were steadily upheld till the great day of retribution came, which involved so many traditions of superstition and error, so many engines of oppression and fraud, in one common and undistinguishing ruin: τὰ πρὶν δὲ πελώρια νῦν ἀϊστοῖ—things mighty indeed have perished away from the world; but thrice blessed was the day which left us free and unshackled to pursue the noblest and purest impulses of our human nature.