812 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
same period. If they were to be characterized for a single subject of legislation, it would be the repression of heresy. Some of them had far more than a local significance, as, for example, the synod of Tours, 1163, when Spain, Sicily, Italy, England, Scotland, and Ireland were represented as well as France. Alexander III. and seventeen cardinals were pres ent. The synod legislated against heresy.
The synod of Verona, 1184, passed a lengthy and notable decree concerning the trial and punishment of heretics. It heard the plea of the Waldenses, but declined to grant it.
The synod of Treves, 1227, passed important canons bearing on the administration of the sacraments.
The synod of Toulouse, 1229, presided over by the papal legate, celebrated the close of the Albigensian crusades and perfected the code of the Inquisition. It has an unenviable distinction among the great synods on account of its decree forbidding laymen to have the Bible in their possession.
These synods were great events, enlightening the age and stirring up thought. Unwholesome as were their measures against ecclesiastical dissent and on certain other subjects, Mieir legislation was, upon the whole, in the right direction of purity of morals and the rights of the people.
§ 128. Church and Clergy in England.
LITERATURE : I. The works of William of Malmesbury, William of Newburgh, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Wendover, M. Paris, Richard of Hoveden, John of Salisbury, Walter Map, Giraldus Cambrensis, Ordericus Vitalis, Peter of Blois, Grosseteste, etc.
II. PHILLIMORE: The Eccles. Law of Engl., 2 vols. Lond., 1873, Supplem., 1876. — STUHBS: Select Charters of Engl. Const. Hist., 8th ed., Oxf., 1895 ; Constit. Hist, of Engl, 6th ed., 1897, 3 vols. — GEE AND HARDY: Documents IHustr. of Engl. Ch. Hist., Lond., 1896. — F. W. MAITLAND: Rom. Canon Law in the Ch. of Engl., Lond., 1898. — JESSOPP : The Coming of the Friars. — H. D. TRAILL : Social England, a Becord of the Progress of the People, etc., 2 vols. Lond., 2d ed., 1894. — W. R. W. STEPHENS: A Hist, of the Engl. Church, 1066-1272, Lond., 1901.— FREEMAN: The Norman Conquest and William Eufus. — Histt. of Eng land and the Ch. of England, etc. — Diet, of Xat. Biogr.
With the Norman Conquest the Roman curia began to manifest anxious concern for the English Church and to
§ 128. CHURCH AND CLERGY IN ENGLAND. 813
reach out for her revenues. Reverent as the Saxon kings had been towards the pope, as was shown in their visits to Rome and the payment of Peter's Pence, the wild condition of the country during the invasions of the Danes offered little attraction to the Church rulers of the South. Henry of Huntingdon called the England of his day — the twelfth century — " Merrie England " l and said that Englishmen were a free people, free in spirit and free in tongue, with even more freedom in giving, having abundance for them selves and something to spare for their neighbors across the sea. The Romans were quick to find this out and treated the English Church as a rich mine to be worked. It is probable that in no other part of Christendom were such constant and unblushing demands made upon church patronage and goods.2 On the other hand, in no country was so persistent a struggle maintained for popular rights in Church and state against the impositions both of pope and crown.
Among the first distinct papal encroachments upon the lib erties of the English Church were the appointment of legates and the demand that the archbishop go to Rome to receive the pallium. The first legates to England seem to have been sent at the invitation of William the Conqueror, 1070, to take up the case of Stigand, the Saxon archbishop of Canterbury, who had espoused the cause of the antipope. It was not long before the appointment of foreign legates was resisted and the pope, after the refusal to receive several of his representatives, was forced to yield and made it a rule to associate the legatine authority with the archbishops of Canterbury and York, — a rule, however, which had many exceptions. The legates of English birth were called legati nati in distinction from the foreign appointees, called legati a later e.
The pope's right to interfere in the appointment of bishops and to fill benefices was asserted soon after the Conqueror's
1 Anglia plena jocis. William Fitzstephen (quoted by Traill, I. 377 sq.) dwells upon the Englishman's love of sports «** that day, — football, boating, archery, etc.
2 Haller, Papsttum, p. 27.