2yS Constitutional IListoτjj. [chap.
Practical cannot fairly be expected to indulge in much theorising; and
the subject he ought not to be tempted to exalt his own generalisati< ns
thisrchapten into the rank of laws. The scope of the present work does not
admit of any disquisition upon the whole of this great subject ;
nor need it be attempted. This being granted, our investiga-
tion becomes limited to the practical points in which during
the middle ages the national church of England, by its dealings
with the crown and parliament, or by its dealings with the
papacy, or by its own proper work unaffected by those in-
fluences, connected itself with the growth of national life,
character, and institutions. And the arrangement of the present
chapter is accordingly a simple arrangement for convenience.
There are four or perhaps five regions of constitutional life in
which the work of the National Church comes into contact with
the work of the State, or with that of the Roman See, or with
both : these are the departments of constitutional machinery or
administration, of "social relations, morality,' spiritual liberty,
and possibly also of'political action. AVithin the first of these
departments come all questions of organisation, legislation,
taxation and judicature, with the subordinate points of property
and patronage. The second, third and fourth will call for a
brief and more speculative examination, as they affect national
character and opinion, especially in relation to the period of
transition and the approaching Reformation. The last depart-
ment, that of political action, may be considered to have been
treated in the preceding pages, not indeed completely, but in
proportion to the general scale of our discussion.
TheEngHsh 376. An attempt has been made in preceding chapters of
spiritualty , . _ 4 ∙n , 1 1 . . ., r, 1
in the mid- tins book to illustrate, as they have come into the Ioreground,
e ages. mos∣. jmp0rtanf points of our early Church History. These
points it is unnecessary to recapitulate ; it will be sufficient to
assume that, in approaching the history of the medieval church,
we may regard the spiritualty of England, the clergy or clerical
estate, as a body completely organised, with a minutely consti-
tuted and regulated hierarchy, possessing the right of legis-
lating for itself and taxing itself, having its recognised assem-
blies, judicature and executive, and, although not as a legal
XIX.]
The Spiritual Tstaie.
299
corporation holding common property, yet composed of a great l⅛ corporate
i ini ° character.
number of persons each of whom possesses corporate property
by a title which is either conferred by ecclesiastical authority,
or is not to be acquired without ecclesiastical assent. Such an
organisation entitles the clergy to the name of a ‘ communitas,’
although it does not complete the legal idea of a corporation
proper. The spiritualty is by itself an estate of the realm ; its ʌɪɪ estate of
ɪɪ τ 1 τ * τ -∣ . th© realm,
leading members, the bishops and certain abbots, are likewise
members of the estate of baronage ; the inferior clergy, if they
possess lay property or temporal endowments, are likewise
members of the estate of the commons. The property which is its property,
held by individuals as officers and ministers of the spiritualty
is either temporal property, that is, lands held by ordinary
legal services, or spiritual property, that is, tithes and oblations.
As an estate of the realm the spiritualty recognises the head- Headship
ship of the king, as a member of the Church Catholic it re- temporal
cognises, according to the medieval idea, the headship of the miɪ,ɛɪ1' 't
pope. Its Oivn chief ministers, the bishops under their two
metropolitans and under the primacy of the church of Canter-
bury, stand in an immediate relation to both these powers, and
the inferior clergy have through the bishops a mediate relation,
while as subjects and as Catholic Christians they have also an
immediate relation, to both king and pope. They recognise the
king as supreme in matters temporal, and the pope as supreme
in matters spiritual ; but there are questions as to the exact
limits between the spiritual and the temporal, and most
important questions touching the precise relations between the
crown and the papacy. On medieval theory the king is a
spiritual son of the pope ; and the pope may be the king’s
superior in things spiritual only, or in things temporal and
spiritual alike.
377. The temporal superiority of the papacy may be held
to depend upon two principles : the first is embodied in the
general proposition asserted by Gregory VII and his successors
that ]tl ∣e pope is supreme over temporal sovereigns! the spiritual
power is by its very nature superior to the temporal, and of that
spiritual power the pope is on earth the supreme depositary