This was one of the more controversial clauses in the Constitutions of Clarendon, more controversial than the one about the prosecution of criminous clerks. This clause was condemned by Pope Alexander III. The issues contained in its meaning had a long history. This was a time when the king was trying to exert his authority over a hodge-podge of customary feudal and regalian rights and the resources of the kingdom, when the precedents for the effective exercise of royal power were hardening into law. These are the early days of the building of nation states as kingdoms ruled by one prince, about the power which these princes had to govern and rule in their own lands, against the ever-centralising Western Christendom-wide power of the bishop of Rome.
It was William the Conqueror who had turned the lands and sees held by bishops and abbots into feudal baronies, fiefs of the crown. But Eadmer tells us that it was William Rufus who was the first king of England to exploit this to the full as a major source of income. Rufus assumed the right to appropriate the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbacies for the Treasury, as the king's regalian right. It seems that Rufus and his procurator, Rannulf Flambard, together had devised a scheme adapting feudal principles to vacant ecclesiastical fiefs, the same principle that applied to lay fiefs. Already the fiefs of dead lay barons were held in wardship after the death of their fiefholder and before the successor came of age. These were a source of revenue for the Treasury. The heirs to tenancies-in-chief held of the king for military service had to buy back their lands from the king before they were allowed to inherit them. And whilst the fiefs were held in wardship the revenues accrued to the treasury. The feudal right of wardship allowed the lord to take control of a fief of a minor heir and farm it until that heir came of age. Now ecclesiastical fiefs would have to do the same when their bishop or abbot died.
"Flambard's contribution to the development of regalian right in England was his efficiency in transforming what was in origin a royal trust of wardship into a most profitable royal right."
William Rufus made huge exactions from these vacant bishoprics and abbacies, the process and profits being managed by Rannulf Flambard who, according to one account of the times, held up to sixteen sees and abbeys vacant at one time, during the year 1097. It was said that Rannulf even bought the vacant and hugely rich episcopacy of Durham from the king from the personal profits which he made from this enterprise, for which he was later imprisoned by Henry I and brought to book by archbishop Anselm and Pope Paschal for simony. He escaped from the Tower and fled into exile in Normandy together with his treasure, joining Robert of Normandy against his brother Henry I.
Scarcely was Archbishop Lanfranc in his grave before
Rannulf was within the gates of Christ Church, demanding a full description of
its sources of revenue. And even while the frightened monks were hastening to
obey the behest of this king's messenger, he informed them that henceforth a tax
must be paid on all food brought into the abbey precincts, as also upon all land
belonging thereto; and that henceforth the whole property attached to the see of
Canterbury was to form a portion of the royal 'demesne' or estate.
This exploitation of the Church's property and lands clearly was not at all popular with the clerics. By the end of William Rufus' reign, 60% of the revenues and wealth of the churches in England were, in one way or other, under the control of the king. Henry I, however, when he came to the throne promised to end this systematic exploitation of vacant church estates. At least that was the promise that he made in his coronation charter.
I, Henry, by the grace of God having been crowned the King of England,
shall not take or sell any property from a Church upon the death of a
bishop or abbot, until a successor has been named to that Church
property. I shall end all the oppressive practices which have been an
evil presence in England.
Henry realised he needed the support of the Church to enforce his claim to the throne. One of his first acts immediately after his accession, was to have Rannulf incarcerated into the Tower
However, the issue was not now only one of exploiting the profits from vacant sees, but became one of asserting the rights of the king regarding investiture, the king' right to nominate and appoint bishops and abbots, and to invest them with their regalia, known as the
Investiture Controversy. Henry battled long and hard with archbishop Anselm [later Saint Anselm] over this matter. The Church claimed these as its own spiritual rights. Kings claimed that the appointment of bishops to their sees were in their gift, naturally, for a consideration.
Prior to the Norman invasion one chronicler recorded that the bishoprics of England had been for many years under the Anglo-Saxon kings within the royal gift. He described that the procedure was as follows: upon the death of a bishop or abbot, the ring and staff [crozier] of the deceased incumbent were sent to the king who after selecting his candidate the latter was sent back to his cathedral with the items for "election" to the see by the dean and chapter.
After the Norman Invasion in England every ecclesiastical election had to receive royal assent, in the form of a letter or writ of consent sent by the king to the chapter giving them the right to hold an election to the see. Much later this writ evolved into the formal
Congé d'Elire to the dean of the chapter of a vacant see, allowing the chapter of the cathedral to hold an election for its bishop.
Before the time of Henry I the investiture of a Bishop to his Bishopric was a gift of the King,
per traditionem annuli et baculi, the ring denoting the marriage of the Bishop to the Church, the staff his pastoral office; but the power of the Roman Curia was increasing. It drew grants from Henry grants, in future the donation of the Bishoprics would and should be elective by the Chapter or Convent of the Cathedral, whose submission was in fact a gift to the Pope, through the means of his agents the monks, of the presentation to every Bishopric in the kingdom of its Bishop. A Vatican Council of 1099 had condemned the investiture of a bishop by a lay person, and the doing of homage by them to a secular man.
The sin of Simony, was the purchase of Church offices or sacraments for money. The Papal Reform movement wanted completely to root out this sin, to clean up the Church and to end the immoral practice of simony. Their reforming zeal was based on Canon Law which was being documented at this time by the ecclesiastical legal scholars. The reforming popes, and Gregory VII in particular, saw it as their responsibility to prohibit and end the investiture of bishops by lay authorities. The investiture of bishops had long been a custom amongst lay rulers, who claimed that it was their right to install and grant newly elected prelates of their land to the secular rights and properties of their sees. This practice had evolved and corrupted over time from one of the king's right not only to invest a newly elected bishop with his regalia but was transforming into the king assuming the right to select the candidate and make the appointment of the new bishop in the first place. This went completely against the Canon Law, displacing the formal the religiously legal process of canonical election of a bishop by the dean and chapter house of its cathedral, for the office of bishop was often sold by the king to the highest bidder or to those who could be relied upon for financial, and/or political support. Also bishops were not to marry and create family dynasties of their positions: Lateran Council II formally banned this in 1139, and secondly declared the following canon
Canon 28: No church was to be left vacant more than three months from the death of the bishop; secular canons who excluded from episcopal election regular canons or monks were condemned
St Anselm's metaphorical model was that the Church in England was a plough and that it should be pulled by two oxen, namely the king [Henry I] and the archbishop of Canterbury [himself], the one drawing along by his human justice and sovereignty, the other by divine doctrine and authority. Anselm fought long and hard with Henry I over the Church's rights regarding the nomination and appointment of bishops, and the result was the Concordat of London 1107. This essentially was a compromise between the Church in England and State: Henry I gave up the right of investiture of the bishops and abbots, but reserved the custom of requiring the candidate bishop to come before him beforehand him in person to do homage for his
temporalities (the feudal properties or regalia of the episcopacy or abbacy), and receive his baronage directly from his hand. During the homage ceremony the candidate bishop or abbot would effectively be made a baron, a tenant-in-chief of the king, and have to do service (provide knights) or pay
scutage for their landed properties. After the candidate bishop or abbot had done homage and sworn fealty to the king in the commendation ceremony (saving their order), like any other secular vassal, the Church could then proceed to invest the candidate with the symbols of ecclesiastical office and consecrate him as a bishop. Clearly ambiguity remained who put forward, or recommended the candidate bishops and abbots in the first place, and whether the required clerical election processes took place before the homage ceremonies or afterwards, just before consecration. It could be supposed that the incumbent previous bishop or abbot, if they were not dead, had a large say in the nomination of their successor whom they prepared and groomed for the post..
But Henry I did not keep the apparent promise he had made in his coronation charter. No sooner than he was on the throne than he too continued the practice of keeping vacant sees empty to line his treasury's coffers. There have been many interpretations by historians about the promise he had made in his Charter of Liberties and t
here is
little agreement as to exactly what the first clause meant, although it is unambiguously clear that Henry I continued for some years after his coronation to enjoy the fruits of vacant episcopal and abbatial sees.
Vacant sees were hugely lucrative for kings. When a king levied
scutage on a vacant bishopric he took payment not only for the registered knights' fees of the barony, the
servicium debitum [military service] found in the Domesday Book, but also from the other unregistered fees of that same barony just as the bishops themselves did from all the tenants of the fees on their barony, whilst only paying over monies to the king's treasury for their registered fees. Thus when a king raised levies on vacant sees he was able to recoup far more from them than when they were occupied by a bishop.
It is said that the reign of Stephen was the only break in the royal claim to the rights of the revenues of vacant sees in England. Stephen's charter of 1136, unambiguously promises
Dum vero sedes propriis pastoribus vacuae fuerint, ipse et omnes earum possessiones in manu et custodia clericorum vel presbiterorum hominum ejusdem ville committantur donec pastor canonice restituatur.
But for so long as a see shall have become vacant of its proper pastor, let the same and all its holdings pass into the care and custody of clerics or priests, trustworthy men of the same city, until a pastor may be canonically restored to it.
Stephen is clearly promising more than just a change in management of vacant sees. He is unambiguously renouncing his right to profit from them, at least the Church seems to have interpreted the clause in this way. Stephen's reign was a time of a brave heart for the Church and the rule by a king willing to make concessions beyond those of his predecessors.
But on the question of the appointment of bishops to their see there was no break in the continuity of the theory and practice that the bishop's barony was to be received at the king's will.
Regarding this the charter says
I promise that I shall neither do, nor permit to be done, anything by simony in the church or in ecclesiastical affairs. I allow and confirm that jurisdiction and authority over ecclesiastical persons and over all clerks and their property and the disposal of ecclesiastical honours will be in the hands of the bishops. I grant and concede that the liberties of the church confirmed by their charters, and their customs that have been observed from antiquity, will remain inviolate. I concede that all ecclesiastical possessions and tenures which were held on the day when king William my Grandfather was alive and dead, will be free and absolved from all dues, without any recovery from claimants. But if the church hereafter seeks to recover possessions which it held before the death of the said king but of which it is now deprived, I reserve to my own pleasure and dispensation whether the property should be restored or the matter discussed. I confirm whatever has been bestowed since the death of the said king by the liberality of kings or the munificence of princes whether in alms, by purchase or by any other grant of the faithful. I promise that I shall keep the peace and do justice in all things, and maintain them as far as I am able.
Did Stephen keep the promises contained in his charter? This is not easy to answer. A few years later he had some bishops arrested contrary to hi promises in the charter. However this question is not strictly relevant to the topic of this blog as it was Henry II's policy to continue to enjoy the same rights that his grandfather, Henry I, had, ignoring whatever rights Stephen may have conceded. Clause 12 of the Constitutions of Clarendon was Henry's interpretation of what those rights were in respect of the right to reap the revenues of vacant sees and on the procedures for appointing bishops to their posts.
Becket argued the following
Fisher, M. Ann Kathleen (1947). "An Annotated Translation of the Life of St. Thomas Becket By Herbert Bosham (Part Two)" .
"To this the archbishop responded briefly
that the property of the poor ought by no means to be applied to
the treasury, and that this would be, as it were, contrary to royal
mercy and magnificence; also that these riches of another are in no wise
the redemption of the soul of a prince. Although this sacrilege has
sometimes been committed by those before us we ought not extend it to
its limit. Rather this (encroachment upon the rights) of the Church
ought always be proclaimed, always opposed, and, as far as possible,
resisted. And if what cannot be corrected be tolerated, yet we ought
never agree to it."
Later the Pope condemned this clause.
After Becket's murder Henry II agreed in 1173 to give the Church greater freedom in the election of bishops, and in 1176 Henry promised the pope that in future he would not keep sees
vacant for more than a year; but he carefully left himself a loophole:
Concedo etiam quod archiepiscopatus, episcopatus et abbatiae non
teneantur in manu mea utra annum, nisi urgente necessitate et evidenti
de causa quae propter hoc non fuerit inventa ut diutius teneantur.
I concede also since an archbishopric, the bishopics and the abbeys may not be held in my hand beyond a year, except in the case of a pressing necessity that they are held for longer the apparent cause of which was not discovered and made evident beforehand.
Pope Gregory VII described the transfer of an ecclesiastical office a donum episcopatus.
Gregory was originally willing to accept the donum from the king if it was done in a canonical fashion, but after the synod of 1075, he went against lay investiture. The donum must be given by worthy persons. The Constitutions of Clarendon tried to enforce the king's rights in this respect.
Lateran II 1139
Canon 28 states
Since the decrees of the fathers prohibit churches to be left vacant [of its bishop] for more than three months, we forbid under anathema the canons of the episcopal see to exclude religious men from the election following on the death of the bishop; but let a virtuous and suitable person be elected as bishop with their advice. Because if an election is held with these religious persons excluded, where this is done without their knowledge and consent, it is null and void.
References
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