The lega-
tion.
Rarity of
legations
to England
before the
Nonnan
Conquest.
Resistance
to Iegatine
authority.
ɜoð Consfdidional IIlslory. [chλγ.
he had to swear obedience to the pope in a form which gradually
became more stringent1; in early times he undertook a journey
to Rome for the purpose ; but after the time of Lanfranc the
pall was generally brought by special envoys from the apostolic
see, and a great ceremony took place on the occasion of the
investiture. This transaction formed a very close link between
the archbishop and the pope, and, although the pall was never
refused to a duly qualified candidate, the claim of a discretion
to give or refuse in fact attributed to the pope a power of veto
on the elections made by national churches and sovereigns.
380. The bestowal of Iegatine authority on the archbishops
came into use much later. England before the Conquest had
been singularly exempt from direct interference. The visits of
the archbishops to Rome, to receive the pall in person, seem to
have been regarded as a sufficient recognition of the dignity of
the apostolic see ; there were no heresies to require castigation
from the central court, and the local and political quarrels of the
kingdom were too remote from papal interests to be worth the
trouble of a legation. In the earlier days an occasional envoy
appeared, either to strengthen the missionary efforts of the native
church, or to obtain the assent of the English prelates to the
enactments of Roman councils ; and in the reign of the Confessor
a legation had been sent by Alexander II probably with a view
of remedying the evils caused by the adhesion of Stigand to
the antipope Benedict X. The visitatorial jurisdiction which
Gregory VII attempted to exercise had been resisted by the
Conqueror, who, although in 1070 he availed himself of the
presence of the legates to displace the hostile bishops, had for-
mally laid down the rule that no legate should be allowed to
land in England unless he had been appointed at the request of
the king and the church2. Nor was the arrival of such an officer
several dates of the occasions on which the archbishops received the pall
will be found in my Kegistrum Sacrum Anglicanum, pp. 140, 141.
1 The custom is said by Gieseler to appear first in 1073 ; see Eccl.
Hist. fed. Hull), vol. iii. p. 168, where several forms are given. The oath
taken by archbishop Neville of York in ι.374 ɪ9 printed in the Ilegistruin
Palatinum, iii. 524-528. See also Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ii. 261.
2 See Eadmer, lib. v. p. ιι8 ; where the legation of abbot AnseIm is
rejected by the clergy and magnates; and lib. vi. p. j38, where Henry I
Legations.
307
more welcome to the clergy. Anselm had to remonstrate with
Paschal U for giving to the archbishop of Vienne Iegatine power
over England, and in doing so to assert that such authority
belonged by prescriptive right to the see of Canterbury ɪ. The
visit of John of Crema, who held a Iegatine council at London
in 1125, was regarded as an insult to the church of Canterbury,
and as soon as he had departed the archbishop, William of Cor-
beuil, went to Rome, where he obtained for himself a commission
as legate with jurisdiction over the whole island of Britain2.
The precedent thus set was an important one : the placing of ∏w legation
the Iegatine power, that is, the visitatorial jurisdiction of the tɔ the arch-
Roman see as then defined, in the hand of the metropolitan of Oimterbury.
Canterbury, at once forced the kings, who had refused to receive
the legate a latere, to admit the supreme jurisdiction of the pope
when vested in one of their own counsellors ; it also had the
effect of giving to the ordinary metropolitan jurisdiction the ap-
pearance of a delegated authority from Rome3. On the death HcnryK
of William of Corbeuil, bishop Alberic of Ostia was sent on a J>aH,an<ι
mission of reform, and on his departure Henry of Blois, bishop Beoket.
of Winchester, obtained the office of legate in preference to the
newly-elected archbishop Theobald4. The death of pope Inno-
cent II brought bishop Henry’s legation to an end, and the influ-
ence of Theobald prevented the succeeding popes from renewing
declares that he will not part with the privileges which his father had
obtained from the holy see, ‘ in quibus haec, et de maximis una, erat quae
regnum Angliae liberum ab omni Iegati ditione Constituerat.' Cf. Klor.
Wig. ii. 70. Lanfranc received authority from Alexander II to settle
two causes left undetermined by the legates in 1070 ; ‘ nostrae et aposto-
Iicae auetoritatɪs vicem;’ Wilk. Cone. i. 326; Eoed. i. I. See Gieseler,
Led. Hist. (ed. Hull), iii. 184.
1 See Eadmer, lib. iii. p. 58 ; Anselm, Epistt. iv. 2. Anselm says,
' Quando Hornae fui ostendi praefato domino papae de Iegatione Romana
super regnum Angliae, quam ipsius regni homines asseverant ab antiquis
temporibus usque ad nostrum tempus ecclesiam Cantuariensem habuisse
. . . Legationeni vero quam usque ad nostrum tempus, secundum prae-
dictum testimonium Ecelesia tenuerat, ɪnihi doɪninus papa non abstulit.'
2 See the Bull of Honorius II, dated Jan. 25, 1126 ; Ang. Sac. i. 7q2∙
cf. Cont. Fl. Wrig. ii. 84. ’
ʃ In 1439 the clergy had to petition that the acts of the spiritual courts
might not be so construed as to bring them under the statute of prae-
munire ; Wilk. Cone. iii. 534.
* March i, 1139; W. Malmesb. Hist. Nov. ii. § 22; John Salbb.
ep. 89.