328
Conslitidional History.
[chap.
resign as unwilling to reside on Iiis see ; and some of the later
cases of resignation may have been the results of legal or moral
pressure. The threat of deprivation, although often held out
by the popes as an ultimate resource against contumacious
prelates, was never carried into effect. The political troubles
cf the reign of Richard II involved certain changes which the
popes, who were too weak to resist much pressure, brought
about, as we have seen, by fictitious translations. The con-
demnation and removal of bishop Pecock of Chichester in 1457
did not apparently constitute a case of formal and legal depri-
vation ; he was declared to be, in consequence of heresy, illegally
possessed of his see, and the pope was requested to deprive him,
but nothing very definite was done ; and the whole details of
his trial are even now matter of controversy. The removal
therefore of a spiritual lord is not in constitutional history a
point so important as the right of appointment.
Additional
bees.
Importance
υf this dis-
cussion.
Permanent additions to the episcopal body by the institution
of new bishoprics were probably sanctioned by papal as well as
national recognition, but 011 this point there is little evidence.
The foundation of the see of Ely in 1109 was confirmed by the
pope, if the extant documents are genuine ; the institution of
the sees of Carlisle and Whithern in 1133 took place when
a brisk communication was open with Rome, and can hardly
have lacked the papal sanction.
The great importance of this discussion must justify its
length. The point at issue was not merely whether the king
or the pope should rule the church through the bishops, but
whether the king and nation should accept, at the pope’s dicta-
tion, the nomination of so large a portion of the House of Lords
as the bishops really formed. When the average number of lay
lords was under forty, the presence of twenty bishops nominated
by the pope, and twenty-six abbots elected under Roman in-
fluence, would have placed the decision of national policy in
foreign hands. The kings had no easy part to play, to avoid
quarreling with the clergy and yet to maintain a hold upon
them. Nor had they to struggle with the pope alone, but
with a great body of European opinion which he could bring to
XiX.] Appointment of Abbots. 329
beaι, upon them. The English reformation, by itself, would
have been impossible unless the unity of that European con-
sensus had been already broken.
387. It might have been expected that the right of appoint- The appoint-
ment to the twenty-six parliamentary abbacies would have been abbots less
to the pope and to the king an object of not less importance than that
than the nomination to bishoprics ; and, as the process of elec- °f blshops∙
tion was much the same in the two cases, it offered the same
opportunities for interference. The forms of licence to elect,
the modes of election, assent, and restitution to temporalities
were exactly parallel in all monasteries of royal foundation,
although in such of them as were, like S. Alban’s, exempt from
all spiritual jurisdiction but that of the pope, the action of the
archbishops was excluded, and the abbots elect sought confir-
mation, if not benediction also, at Rome. Neither the king
however nor the pope attempted much interference in this
quarter1. The monasteries were the stronghold of papal influ-
ence, which they supported as a counterpoise to that of the
diocesan bishops ; the pontiffs were too wise to overstrain an
authority which was so heartily supported, and they trusted
the monks. The kings let them alone for other reasons : the
abbots were not so influential as the bishops in public affairs,
nor was the post equally desirable as a reward for public
service ; with a very few exceptions the abbacies were much
poorer than the bishoprics, and involved a much more steady
attention to local duties, which would prevent attendance at
court. But probably the chief cause of their immunity from Dangerof
1 ,∙ л , . , ,ι ,, , , . rt . towelling the
royal usurpation was the certainty that any attempt to infringe privileges of
their liberties would have armed against the aggressors the veatb°
whole of the monastic orders, with their widespread foreign
organisation and overwhelming influence at Rome. One result
of this immunity was that scarcely any abbot during the later
middle ages takes any conspicuous part in English politics ; the
1 There are some few instances; for example, Edmund Bromfield
obtained a provision to the abbey of S. Edmund’s in 1379 contrary to
tbe Statute of Provisors; Cont. Murim. p. 235. And in 1347 the com-
mons petitioned against papal provisions to abbeys and priories ; Hot.
Parl. ii. 171.