part of his patriarchal jurisdiction; but the rank has long been merely honorary.

3. In the same manner, as in the Roman empire, the metropolitan city of a province had precedence over all the other cities within its territory, the prelate of that city had a certain precedence of rank and spiritual jurisdiction over the prelates of the other sees; and was indifferently called METROPO

LITAN or ARCHBISHOP.

4. The BISHOPS, over whom his jurisdiction extends, were called his suffragans.

5. It remains to mention the PAPAL LEGATES OR ENVOYS. To these, the pope delegated a portion of his authority, to be exercised within a certain district. In modern times they are generally called nuncios, when they are sent to a prince or state of the first order; and internuncios, when they are sent to an inferior state. This rank was often manently attached to a particular see: they were then said to be legates born of the holy see.

per

At the time, of which we are speaking, all this gradation of rank was established in England; her church acknowledged the universal supremacy of the pope, as successor of St. Peter, and his particular jurisdiction, as patriarch of the western division of the Roman empire: the archbishop of Canterbury was the primate; the provinces of Canterbury and York were under the metropolitan jurisdiction of their respective archbishops; and each had his suffragan bishops; a papal nunciature was attached to the see of Canterbury.

The Norman conqueror made no alteration in

this arrangement; but he effected one, in the administration of the ecclesiastical law, which was followed, almost immediately, by the most important consequences.

Though the Saxon prelates had not distinct courts, it is certain that both the theory and practice of ecclesiastical jurisprudence were known in the Saxon church: the episcopal sentences were usually pronounced from the altar, and the aid of the secular arm was often called to enforce them, against the contumacious.

The recourse to it was easy, as the bishops and the sheriffs sate in the court, and thus, each might come instantaneously to the aid of the other.

In 1086, the conqueror withdrew the concerns of the church from the cognizance of the sheriff's court, by a charter which is expressed to have been made by the advice of his ordinary council, and the advice also of the archbishops, bishops and princes of the realm*. It enacted, that no bishop or archdeacon should hold pleas in the hundred concerning ecclesiastical matters; and that no cause, relating to the discipline or government of the church, should be brought before the secular magistrate: but that every person, who was accused of a breach of the canons, should appear at a place to be appointed by the bishop, and that the process should be conducted

* "An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of England, from the first planting of Christianity to the end of the reign of Charles II, with a brief account of affairs in Ireland, collected from the best ancient historians, councils and records, 2 vols. fo. 1708. By Jeremy Collier, D. D.". See vol. i. P. 255. Coll. vi,

and sentence given, according to the ecclesiastical constitutions. If the party should refuse to appear after three summonses, he was to be excommunicated; and, if he should still continue obstinate, resort was to be had to the secular power, and the sheriff was to enforce his submission by the posse of the county.

William probably did not foresee all the consequences of this regulation: the bishops soon established a system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence on the principles and practice of the canon law, and a regular system of judicial process, ascending successively from the lowest court, to the court of the bishop, the court of the archbishop and the court of the roman see; but the pope might hear any cause in the first instance, or call it to him while it was pending in an intermediate court. Thus the separation of the ecclesiastical and civil tribunals originated in this country: it has continued uninterruptedly to the present time.

CHAP. III.

INVESTITURES-ST. ANSELM.

1100.

THE disputes between the popes and the sovereigns of Europe respecting the investiture of ecclesiastical benefices appear frequently in the histories of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

According to the law of tenure, no person was

considered to be the lawful, or even the actual possessor of the tenement, till he had done homage for it, and taken the oath of fealty to the lord, of whom he held it, and till he had been invested with it by the hand of the lord. It was usually delivered to him by the lord's presenting him with a bough, or a piece of turf, or some other symbol of the property. On the receipt of the symbol, he was said to be invested with the tenure, and he then became complete tenant to the lord.

When a bishop died, his ring and crosier were transmitted to the prince, within whose jurisdiction his diocese was situate. On the appointment of his successor, the prince presented them to him, as a symbolical delivery of the temporal possessions of the see: the bishop placed them in the hands of the metropolitan, and received them back from him as a symbol of the spiritual right, conferred on him by his consecration.

It is evident that, though the delivery of the ring and crosier by the emperor to the bishop elect, was principally intended as a symbolic delivery of the tenement, or temporal possessions of the see, it operated, indirectly as a kind of co-ordinate appointment to the see, and a kind of veto on any appointment, which it did not accompany. Besides, it too often happened that princes sold, or otherwise corruptly disposed of the bishoprics, or kept them vacant*. In all these oppressions, they were

* It appears from the records of the Exchequer, that Henry the first had in his hands in the 16th year of his reign, one archbishopric, five bishoprics and three abbies; in the 19th,

assisted by the right which they claimed of withholding the ring and crosier.

In this ceremonial, three things gave particular offence to the Roman pontiffs: they considered the ceremony to be spiritual, which it was therefore a sacrilege in a layman to perform; but the spirituality of the ceremony, it was difficult to prove: they said it virtually deprived the clergy of their right of election; the prince alleged in answer, that he represented the whole body of the people, by whom the right of election was primitively exercised it was also said, and certainly with reason, that the practice facilitated the simoniacal traffic of benefices: but this was rather a proof of the abuse of the cere mony, than an objection to the ceremony itself. It is possible that, if some person of weight had brought the popes and princes to a clear understanding of the rights respectively claimed by them, these disputes might have been settled to their mutual satisfaction, either by substituting some ceremonial agreeable to both parties, or making the sovereign declare what he considered the ceremonial then in use to import, and to disavow the opposite construction. Instead of this, the dispute involved the state and church, for more than two centuries, in the deepest calamities and most complicated scenes of confusion and distress.

"

one archbishopric, five bishoprics and six abbies; and in the 31st, one archbishopric, six bishoprics and seven abbies.History of England from the first invasion by the Romans. to the accession of Henry VIII. By the rev. John Lingard, in 3 vols. 4to. vol. ii. p. 65. He cites Madox, 209, 212.