CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE LAST YEARS OF BISHOP GROSSETESTE

WHEN Pope Innocent IV died on 7th December, 1254, many grave matters concerning England still awaited solution. Before passing on to consider the attitude of his successor, Alexander IV, towards England, it may be well to examine briefly into the state of ecclesiastical affairs in the country during the three or four last years of Pope Innocent's reign, and to make an attempt to determine the relations then existing between Rome and England.

The papal "provisions" of foreigners to English benefices, which during the whole of this reign had given rise to such dissatisfaction in the country, though perhaps somewhat fewer in number, were still sufficiently numerous to keep alive a spirit of discontent, which occasionally found expression in the letters and speeches of even the most loyal churchmen. Although some mitigation of the evil had been obtained from Rome, in such papal enactments, for example, as that no Italian should succeed an Italian in any living; still, in practice dispensations from these restrictions were readily found when necessary. An example may be given of the case of St. Alban's in 1251. In the December of that year the pope sent his letters to the abbot and convent in favour of John de Camezana, his nephew, who desired to have the church of Wingrave, the patronage of

which belonged to the abbey. The living was not at the time vacant; but the pope took to himself the next presentation in favour of Camezana, and he dispensed for this time with the law forbiding one Italian to succeed another in the holding of any benefice. After stating this case, the chronicler appears rather to apologise for finding a place for the incident in a general history of the times. But, he says, "I have concluded to insert it, that readers may see with what injuries and oppressions the Roman Curia harasses us poor English. This is what alienates our hearts, though not our persons, from our father the pope, who seems driven (to treat us) with the harshness of a conqueror; and from our mother the Roman Church, which acts towards us with the persecuting spirit of a step-mother."1

Similar heartburnings had been experienced in France, then under the rule of St. Louis. Pope Innocent IV, in order to be able to carry on his quarrel with the emperor, and to continue the struggle of the Christian arms against the Moslem power in the Holy Land, was forced to take many exceptional measures to obtain money. However necessary the object—and about the crusades at least there can be little doubt-the measures taken were contrary to the truest interest of Christian countries, as tending to alienate peoples and their rulers from the centre of Christendom. These exactions, it must be remembered, weighed as heavily on the French clergy as they did on those of England. Innocent IV felt himself bound to recompense the faithful services of those who surrounded him, and the readiest, and it would almost seem the only means of doing so, was to make the endowments of England and France pay for these services in the shape of pensions, prebends, and benefices. Louis of France, in spite, or rather perhaps

1 Matthew Paris, v. 232-233.

because, of his ardent devotion to religion, felt himself bound to protect, even against him whom he regarded as the head and supreme authority in the Church, the prerogatives of his Crown and the rights and possessions of his subjects.

In May, 1247, the archbishop of Canterbury, then in the Curia, tells his brother, Peter of Savoy, of representations being then made to the pope at Lyons by envoys from France. The embassy consisted of the marshal of France, Ferri Pasté, representing the king, and the bishops of Soissons and Troyes sent by the French clergy. They complained of the abuse of authority on the part of the Roman Curia, and the special points indicated are precisely those with which every student of the English records is familiar. The pope replied in such a vague way as to give little satisfaction to the envoys, and they were forced to leave after only three days' sojourn, without having effected much by their representations.' St. Louis, however, clearly shared their feelings and desires, for a second embassy was dispatched to the pope at the beginning of June to make even stronger representations, and there was reason. M. Elie Berger, the editor of the Registers of Innocent IV, thus describes the action of the papal officials in France at this time. Men constantly heard the words: "Give me so much, or I will excommunicate you." They saw priests of the highest dignity, the successors of the Apostles, and with them all the ministers of the Church, treated by order of the apostolic nuncios as if they were slaves or Jews. . . . For the first time this system was put in practice by the cardinal-bishop of Praeneste, who, during

Additamenta, 131-133; cf. Lavisse, Histoire de France, III., ii. 65. M. Langlois, the author of this section, notes that the knowledge of this Mémoire is due to Matthew Paris, who has preserved it.

his legation, had imposed money procurations on all the churches of the kingdom. He made the bishops, abbots, priors, and other ecclesiastics come secretly to him one by one, and said to them: "I order you, in virtue of the obedience you owe me, and under pain of suspension, not to reveal to anyone by word or action, by sign or writing, what I am going to say to you: if you do, ipso facto you fall under the sentence of excommunication." Then, having shut the lips of his victim, he added: "I order you, by the pope's command, to pay such a sum of money, at such a time and place, and if you make default you will be excommunicated." One of the demands of this second memorial presented to the pope by the French ambassadors was that this practice should instantly cease.'

To return to England. The example set by the Roman authorities in dealing with the property of the English Church, without regard to the purposes for which it was intended, was copied by the king. He kept the property of vacant Sees and abbeys in his hands whenever he could, and for as long as he pleased, in defiance of his reiterated promises. These lands and manors he dilapidated at will, by cutting down the timber and granting leases, and in fact he treated them as if they had been his own personal property. In 1254, when he was in Gascony, Henry did not hesitate even to assign the property of certain vacant Sees and abbeys to some pressing creditors from whom he had borrowed money. In fact, the king was constantly in such serious financial difficulties that the habit of looking for anything upon which he could lay his hands had become almost a second nature to him; and though he was at times generous in his gifts, they were sometimes at least suspected of being acquired from some third party. On 1 1 Reg. d'Innocent IV, i. cxxv. 2 Matthew Paris, v. 467.

one occasion, about the year 1252, the Franciscans received as an alms from the king a two-horse load of gray woollen cloth, suitable for their habits. The friars, however, at the same time heard that Henry had practically taken the stuff from the merchants, who had wished to sell it, without payment. They consequently sent back the cloth at once in the cart to the king, declaring that it was unlawful for them to receive as alms what had been taken from the poor.1

At the same time, whilst in difficulties himself, the English king could be royal in munificent dealings with others. Unless Pope Innocent IV had by the end of his life learned to gauge Henry's promises, his closing days must have been consoled by the king's open-hearted generosity. "Under pain of forfeiting his kingdom," says the chronicler, "which, by the way," he adds, “he neither could do, nor ought to have done," he pledged himself to repay all the cost incurred by the pope in the war in which the Sicilian business had involved the Roman Church. He was to get all that was necessary from that inexhaustible well of all riches-England. And the pope, says Matthew Paris, "not having for the country the bowels of affection, borrowed the money to a large, and even prodigal amount, from the Italian usurers, whom they call merchants; which amount, by the extortion of the pope and the cheating of the king, England, reduced to the depths of slavery, would be compelled to pay." The wrath of the English generally was during all this period stirred up against the foreign usurers, who, under the name of merchants, came into the country under the protection of papal authority, and not unfrequently in the train of, or following immediately after, the nuncios or other papal officials. When the ecclesiastics 1 Matthew Paris, v. 275. 2 Ibid., 470.