was different in regard to the nation at large, which appears throughout to have been exceedingly barbarous,as much so certainly as any other in Christian Europe. If a few ecclesiastics were learned, we know, from good authority, that the majority were illiterate; scarcely able, at some periods, to stammer out a service which they could not understand. It is, indeed, a singular fact, that while those were more learned than the most distinguished of their brethren in any other part of Europe, these were more ignorant than the lowest. And this fact is full of instruction: it proves that there was something exceedingly defective in the constitution of the Saxon mind; or, to speak more correctly, in the education, the habits, the associations, the civil and religious institutions of the nation. But we must hasten from this period to one brighter, and, though not more important, certainly more interesting. BENEFITS, BOTH INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS, RESULTING FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST. NEW SPIRIT INFUSED INTO THE NATION. LANFRANC. ST. ANSELM. DISPUTES BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL JURISDICTIONS. ST. THOMAS À BECKET. OPPRESSION AND RAPACITY OF THE - CROWN UNDER HENRY II. AND HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS. VERNACULAR POETRY. SCIENCE. ROMANCES. VERNACULAR For the sake of clearness, no less than the natural connection of the subject, we shall divide the present chapter into three parts. We shall consider, I. The Church, and the writers who are purely ecclesiastical. II. Literature. III. Philosophy and Science. But these subjects are identical, and capable of classification not under three heads but one. I. The Church. 1070. No sooner had the Conqueror firmly seated himself 1067 on the throne of England, than, actuated as much by to policy as revenge,-by the conviction that his Normans would be his best supporters, as from resentment to the opposition shown towards him by the native churchmen, he began to displace the bishops and abbots, and to at a appoint his own creatures. For his dispossession of the temporal barons, the thanes, and even the more considerable of the freeholders, we can account: he was at the head of a powerful army; he was invested with all the rights of conquest; he had the authority of a lord over his vassals. But to explain the facility with which he exercised the same violence over the church, time, too, when that church was swayed by the councils of the great Hildebrand,—is not so easy. Overbearing as was the victor, he dared not, by his own unaided authority, venture on so bold a measure. In the view of reforming the church, he procured from pope Alexander II. (who had been devoted to, and who was directed by, Hildebrand) the mission of three legates, armed with full powers to effect that object. That a great, a universal reformation was wanted, is undoubted on every side were to be seen immorality and ignorance; immorality which, in any other country, would have been scarcely tolerated in a layman; ignorance to which no other presented a parallel. Not only were the secular clergy, from their constant intercourse with the world, adepts in all the vices of the age, only, in the emphatic language of William of Malmesbury, were learning and religion grown obsolete, from the archbishop to the lowest parish priest,—but even the monks were become stupid and barbarous, ready to indulge in all the sensual vices, or the criminal amusements of the day. The prelates and abbots were the first to suffer for their vices or their ignorance. Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, had offended the king by refusing to crown him; and he had equally offended against the canons by attempting to annex the see of Winchester to the primacy, - a practice which appears to have been frequent enough from the time of St. Dunstan. To this we may add, that he was certainly illiterate; that he was simonical and avaricious; and that he had usurped the see of Canterbury, not only contrary to the canons, but in violation of common decency, by directing the anger of St. Edward to his not predecessor, whom he had succeeded in banishing. When cited to Rome to answer for his conduct, he had always contrived to find some evasion. Though suspended by a preceding pope, a bribe seasonably offered to the antipope, Benedict X., had procured his reinstatement. In short, however the circumstance may have been overlooked by modern historians, he was, doubtless, one of the worst prelates probably one of the worst men - that ever sat on the ecclesiastical throne of Canterbury.* His deposition, therefore, was demanded by the very interests of religion. In his place Lanfranc, an Italian by birth, and the abbot of St. Stephen's, at Caen, was appointed. This, beyond all doubt, was the best choice that could have been made; for Lanfranc was not only one of the most religious, he was also one of the wisest men of his age. From a school which he had opened at Avranches, from the monastery of Bec, where he had been prior, from that of St. Peter, which duke William had bestowed on him, he had diffused the rays of learning throughout the duchy. The good wrought by this one man is wonderful: he found the province barbarous, with not one able teacher to reclaim it; by his cares he had, at length, a hundred scholars, all taught by him, all ready to co-operate with him in the spread of civilisation. Lanfranc, whose humility was equal to his learning, and whose wisdom was equal to his piety, had earnestly declined the proffered dignity. One plea was his ignorance alike of the language and the manners of the barbarous people. He foresaw the difficulties with which he should have to contend; the universal de * How comes this man to have been so leniently treated by all our historians? All seem to have overlooked the council of Winchester, where he was convicted of three heavy offences, and solemnly deposed: In quo concilio, says Hoveden, Stigandus Doroberniæ archiepiscopus degradatus, tribus de causis; scil. quod episcopatum Wintonia cum archiepiscopatu injuste possidebat; quod vivente Roberto archiepiscopo (his predecessor), non solum archiepiscopatum sumpsit, sed etiam ejus pallio, quod Cantuariæ remansit, dum vi suâ injuste ab Anglia pulsus est, in missarum celebratione aliquando usus est; et a Benedicto, quum pecuniis sedem apostolicam invasit, pallium accepit. Nor were these his only offences. Yet Stigand is praised, while the memory of Dunstan, whom all contemporary history represents as an excellent prelate, is followed by savage persecution. generacy of the English clergy, who were, in fact, rapidly becoming laymen; the rapacity of the Norman nobles, who had already seized many domains of the church; and the imperious temper of William, whom it would often be his duty to oppose. For these, and other reasons, we need not wonder that an old man — he was even now fast approaching his eightieth year should be reluctant to enter on so new and laborious a sphere of exertion. The authority, however, of the king, and the positive commands of the pope, induced him to accept the dignity. His first object was to reform the canons; to forbid clergymen from marrying, from engaging in secular occupations, from joining in frivolous amusements. His next was canonically to depose those who, whether mentally or morally, had not the requisite qualifications. Assisted by the legates, he deposed one dignitary for hunting and hawking; another for simony; a third for immorality; a few for ignorance: some, dreading the result, probably because they were implicated in the frequent insurrections of the times, fled into Scotland, and thereby left their sees or monasteries open for a new possessor. In all cases, the vacancies were supplied with learned and moral ecclesiastics from Normandy. "This measure,” says a modern historian *, with great truth, 66 was an important addition to the civilisation of the island. No present can be greater to any country than that of a moral and lettered clergy; and from no other class of men does social improvement, or deterioration, more certainly flow. Their natural influence is that of mind, virtue, and piety, wherever these mark their character; and it is an influence ever loved and welcomed, when these invaluable qualities really exist to create it. The improvements which gradually flowed from the Norman ecclesiastics spread through England a new spirit of knowledge and propriety." In reality, no change was ever so beneficial as that which transferred the sceptre from the Saxon to the Norman line, the ministry of * Mr. Turner. |