ɔoo Constitutional History. [cjiap.
ïwtwœn the ɪɪ1*3 ProPosr⅛ ɪ011 таУ 'je accepted or denied, but it implies a
y°wna^ ruIe equally applicable to all kingdoms. The second principle
involves the claim to special superiority over a particular
kingdom^ such as was at different times made by the popes in
reference to England, Scotland, Ireland, Naples, and the empire
itself, and turns upon the special circumstances of the countries
so claimed. These two principles are in English history of
unequal importance : the first, resting upon a dogmatic founda-
tion, has, so far as it is recognised at all, a perpetual and semi-
religious force ; the latter, resting upon legal assumptions and
historical acts, has more momentary prominence, but less real
Questionsof significance. The claim of the pope to receive homage from
dependence AVilIiam the Conqueror, on whatever it was based, was rejected
dom on the by the king, and both he and AVilliam Rufus maintained their
pup ' right to determine which of the two contending popes was
entitled to the obedience of the English church ɪ. Henry II,
when he received Ireland as a gift from Adrian IV, never
intended to admit that the papal power over all islands,
inferred from the Donationof Constantine, could be understood
so as to bring England under the direct authority of Rome ; nor
when, after Becket’s murder, he declared his adhesion to the
pope, did he contemplate more than a spiritual or religious
relation2. John’s surrender and subsequent homage first
created the shadow of a feudal relation, which was respected by
Henry III, but repudiated by the parliaments of Edward I and
1 On the answer of the Conqueror to Gregory’s demand of fealty see vol.
i. p. 309 : ‘ Bdelitatem facere nolui nec volo, quia nec ego promisi nec ante-
cessores meos antecessoribus tuis id fecisse comperio.’
Henry I writes to Paschal II : ‘ beneficium quod ab antecessoribus meis
beatus Petrus habuɪt, vobis mitto; eosque honores it earn Obedientiam,
quam tempore patris mei antecessores vestri in regno Angliae Iiabuerunt,
tempore meo ut habeatis volo, co videlicet tenore ut dignitates usus et
Consuetudines quas pater meus tempore antecessorum Vestrorum in regno
Anglia'e habuit, ego tempore vestro in eodem regno meo intégré obtineam.
Notumque habeat Sanctitas vestra quod me vivente, Deo auxiliante, dig-
nitates et usus ιegni Angliae non minuentur. Et si ego quod absit in
tanta me dejectione ponerem, optimales mei, immo totius Angliae populus,
id nullo modo pateretur. Habita igituτ, earissiɪne pater, utiliori delibera-
tione, ita se erga nos moderetur benignitas vestra, ne, quod invitus faciam,
a vestra me cogatis recedere obedientia;’ Foed. i. 8; Bromton, c. 999;
Foxe, Acts &c., ii. 163.
2 See above, vol. i. p. 602, note 2.
Six.] Papal Supremacy. 301
Edward III1, and passed away leaving scarcely a trace under
the later kings.
The great assumption of universal supremacy, with the re- The general
. _ -∣ji ∙ , . , . claims of
sistance which it provoked, and the evasions at which it con- spiritual
nived, gives surpassing interest to another side of medieval for tħTacy
history. This claim however in its direct form, that is, in the popedom,
region of secular jurisdiction, the assertion that the pope is
supreme, so that he can depose the king or release the subject
from his oath and duty of allegiance, does not enter into this
portion of our subject. The discussions which took place on the
great struggle between John XXII and Lewis of Bavaria had
their bearings on later history, but only affect England, in com-
mon with the Avignon papacy and the great schism, as tending
to shake all belief in the dogmatic assumptions of Rome. The
parliament of 1399 declared that the crown and realm of Eng-
land had been in all time past so free that neither pope nor any
other outside the realm had a right to meddle therewith 2.
The claim of spiritual supremacy, within the region of
spiritual jurisdiction and property, will meet us at every turn,
but the history of its origin and growth belongs to an earlier
stage of ecclesiastical history.
The idea of placing in one and the same hand the direct Theory of
control of all causes temporal and spiritual was not unknown temporal
in the middle ages. The pope’s spiritual supremacy being sovere⅞∏⅛'?1
granted, complete harmony might be attained not only by
making the pope supreme in matters temporal, but by dele-
gating to the king supremacy in matters spiritual. Before the Royal
struggle about investiture arose, Sylvester II had empowered °
the newly-made king Stephen of Hungary to act as the papal
representative in regulating the churches of his kingdom 3, and
after that great controversy had begun, the Great Count Roger
of Sicily received from Lτrban II4 a grant of hereditary ecclesi-
ɪ Vol. i. p. 561 ; vol. ii. pp. 159, 435. 2 Rot. Parl. iii. 419.
3 ‘ Ecclesias Dei, una cum populis nostra rice ei Ordinandas relinquimus.’
Sec the Bull dated March 27, 1000 ; in Cocquelines, Bullar. ɪ. 399; Gieseler,
ii. 463.
4 July 5, 1098; on the great question of the ‘Sicilian Monarchy’ see
Giannone, Hist. Naples, 1. x. e. 8 ; Mosheim, Church Hist. ii. p. 5 ; Gieseler,
vol. iii. p. 33. The words are ‘ quae per Iegatum aeturi sumus per vestram