enabled him to give to his work a superiority over the compilations of his predecessors. Yet the knowledge of Ivo must have been confined to the Theodosian code, the Institutes, and mutilated extracts from the Pandects of Justinian. But when Amalfi was taken by the Pisans in 1137, an entire copy of the last work was discovered; and its publication immediately attracted, and almost monopolised, the attention of the learned.* Among the students and admirers of the Pandects was Gratian, a monk of Bologna, who conceived the idea of compiling a digest of the canon law on the model of that favourite work; and soon afterwards, having incorporated with his own labours the collections of the former writers, he gave his Decretum ' to the public in 1151. From that moment the two codes, the civil and canon laws, were deemed the principal repertories of legal knowledge; and the study of each was supposed necessary to throw light on the other. Roger the bachelor, a monk of Bec, had already read lectures on the sister sciences in England; but he was advanced to the government of his abbey †, and the English scholars, immediately after the publication of the Decretum, crowded to the more renowned professors in the city of Bologna. After their return they practised in the episcopal courts; their respective merits were easily appreciated; and the proficiency of the more eminent was rewarded with an ample harvest of wealth and preferment. This circumstance gave to the spiritual a marked superiority over the secular courts. The proceedings in the former were guided by fixed and invariable principles, the result of the wisdom of ages; the latter were compelled to follow a system of jurisprudence confused and uncertain, partly of AngloSaxon, partly of Norman origin, and depending on precedents, of which some were furnished by memory, others had been transmitted by tradition. The clerical judges were men of talent and education: men preferred the uniformity and equity of their decisions, to the caprice and violence which seemed to sway the royal and baronial justiciaries; and by degrees every cause, which legal ingenuity could connect with the provisions of the canons, whether it regarded tithes, or advowsons, or public scandal, or marriage, or testaments, or perjury, or breach of contract, was drawn before the ecclesiastical tribunals. A spirit of rivalry rose between the two judicatures, which quickly ripened into open hostility. On the one side were ranged the bishops and chief dignitaries of the church; on the other the *See Vol. I. p. 243. of this compendium. +Chronicon Norman. 783. Gervase, 1665 (Twysden). He was made abbot in 1149. From John of Salisbury, we learn that Stephen prohibited the lectures of Roger. UNIVERSITY 1162 king and the barons; both equally interested in the quarrel, because both were accustomed to receive the principal share of the fines, fees, and forfeitures in their respective courts. Archbishop Theobald had seen the approach, and trembled for the issue of the contest; and from his death-bed he wrote to Henry, recommending to his protection the liberties of the church, and putting him on his guard against the machinations of his enemies." * Every reader in these days must agree that these liberties were inconsistent with the well-being of the community. The clergy were no doubt better qualified as to knowledge, and more disposed to equity, than the baronial judges; and, as we have before observed †, their expulsion from the judicial courts by the Conqueror was not agreeable to the people. But the discharge of functions so dissimilar to their proper duties, could not fail to distract their minds from the concerns of re ligion; nor to generate a worldly spirit, injurious t their holy vocation. Besides, when the Roman see begar to promulgate claims which directly tended to the establishment of an universal theocratic power, which would have reduced all the nations of the earth to a slavish dependence on the pope, it was high time to check the presumption. But for the vigorous opposition of the Christian princes of Europe, there would infallibly have been established a spiritual despotism intolerable as that of the grand Lama. Under the Saxon rule, when the popes were too distant and too feeble to influence the civil government, when the royal thanes and sheriffs were sunk in brutish ignorance, not only was there no harm, there was positive and great good, in the association of so intelligent a dignitary as the bishop in the judicial office. Such a system, however, could not well be permitted after the eleventh century, when the subjection of kings and nations to the chair of St. Peter was so openly proclaimed. Wisely, therefore, did the Conqueror confine *Lingard's History of England, vol. ii. p. 54, &c. the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts to the offences of ecclesiastics alone. But even this limitation was found by experience to be insufficient. By the canons, no ec clesiastical judge could pass sentence of death; the heaviest punishments he could inflict were flagellation and imprisonment; and even these were less frequent than fines and suspension. Now it is manifest, that where the crime was heinous, such punishment was a mockery of justice: it was worse; for it inspired a confidence little short of impunity, and was a direct incentive to crime. The evil was greatly enhanced by the fact, that many could claim the clerical privileges who were not clergymen; for whoever had received the tonsure, whether he afterwards embraced holy orders or not, was entitled to them. Hence, there were many who had no cure, who belonged to no monastery, who led a vagabond life, just as their disposition impelled them, who owned no obedience to the secular tribunals, who were ever ready for crime, and, when detected, were no less ready to invoke the privileges of their order. If, as we are informed, during the first ten years of Henry's reign, no less than one hundred homicides had been perpetrated by members of the clerical order, well might that monarch resolve that such a state of things should not continue. He knew that the feeling of the nation was with him; and he expected much from the co-operation of his friend and chancellor Thomas à Becket, on whom he had just conferred the archbishopric of Canterbury.* to The life of this celebrated prelate has been so often and 1117 so amply detailed, that we should be inexcusable for dwelling on it so largely as we intend, but for two reaIt is more closely connected with the church of sons. Wil * Radulfus de Diceto, Imagines Historiarum, p. 520, &c. Brompton, Chronicon, passim. Gervase, Chronica, p. 1382., necnon Acta Pontificum Cantuariensium, p. 1668. Robertus de Monte, Chronica (sub annis). kins, Concilia, tom. i. p. 428, &c. (in Synodo Cicestrensi). Lingard, History of England, ii, 60. If the reader wish to see this subject beautifully con. fused, let him look into Townsend's "Accusations of History against the Church of Rome," Letters 7 & 8. 1162. England, than that of any other man; and we know not that it has hitherto been fairly represented by any writer, Roman catholic or protestant. As we are perfectly free from the bias which has evidently swayed both, we approach the subject with the same honesty of purpose, and the same fearless resolution of speaking the truth, as, we hope, have hitherto guided us. He was born in London in the year 1117. His father, Gilbert, was a merchant of that city: his mother, if any faith be due to the relations of Brompton and other authorities, was the daughter of a Syrian emir, who followed Gilbert to London, was converted, and married to the object of her affections. Educated successively under the canons of Merton at Oxford and at Paris, he next attended the lectures on canon law by the famous Gratian at Bologna, while he learned the civil law from another professor in that renowned university. The latter appears to have been his favourite pursuit,— doubtless, because it offered the most alluring prospect to his ambition. He was fortunate in having for his patron Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, at whose instigation he had studied the law; yet the rapidity of his promotion, immediately after his return, must surprise us. Successively presented with preferment in the cathedrals of Lincoln and St. Paul's, with the provostship of Beverley, and with the archdeaconry of Canterbury, he soon received from Henry the office of chancellor. He had been the friend, the confidential adviser of the archbishop: he was now to possess an equal influence over the mind of the king. It seemed, indeed, as if no post or emoluments were sufficient for him. With the government of the realm as chancellor, he held the preceptorship of prince Henry, eldest son of the monarch; the wardenship of the tower of London, the castle of Berkhamstead, and the honour of Eye, with three hundred and forty knights' fees His revenues must have been immense, to support so vast and so magnificent an establishment as his household now displayed. Thousands of knights are said to have been his vassals: thousands certainly frequented his table, which was open to all who had business at court; never did he sit down to it unaccompanied by men of higher rank than these, by many barons and earls. The gold and silver of his palace was immense; the very bit of his horse's bridle is said to have been a treasure. Notwithstanding the multitude who ate at his table, the entertainment consisted of the most costly viands and of the choicest wines. The presents, too, which he daily made,-horses, birds, garments, plate, and money,-prove his inexhaustible resources. All this splendid show, this boundless hospitality, was intended to win the popular favour, of which he is said by one of his biographers to have been immeasurably fond. In fact, his fame soon spread throughout Christian Europe; the sons of foreign nobles were sent to serve in his household, to be instructed in all the accomplishments of the age, and ultimately to win the honour of knighthood. His style of living was not more splendid than his familiarity with the king was unbounded. Henry indeed, lived with him as one brother with another, and apparently with more than a brother's affection; the monarch, in fact, appears to have been gratified by the princely state of his minister. The surprise of the French is described as excessive when Becket proceeded to Paris, to negotiate a marriage between prince Henry and a daughter of their king. He was accompanied by 200 knights of his household, besides many barons and nobles, and a whole army of domestics, who were well armed and magnificently attired: the chancellor himself had four and twenty changes of apparel. His train of waggons and sumpter-horses was endless; and, to pursue at leisure his favourite diversion of hunting and hawking, he had abundance of dogs and birds, with the necessary domestics. When he entered a town, he carefully exhibited his pomp. The proces sion was headed by 250 boys, singing English ballads; next advanced his hounds, with their keepers; then his waggons, carrying his wines, viands, wardrobe, kitchen |