386
Constitutional History.
[chap.
Abuses of CUiiiary fines, really secured the peccant clerk and the immoral
courts™1"11 layman alike from the due consequences of vice, such as either
stricter discipline or a healthier public opinion would have been
likely to impose. And in this, as in other particulars, the
medieval church incurred a fearful responsibility. The evils
against which she had to contend were beyond her power to
overcome, yet she resisted interference from any other hand.
Their in- The treatment of such moral evils as did not come within the
refonn.y °f contemplation of the common law was left to the church courts ;
the church courts became centres of corruption which arch-
bishops, legates, and councils tried to reform and failed, choosing
rather to acquiesce in the failure than to allow the intrusion
Unwilling- of the secular power. The spiritual jurisdiction over the clergy
updericsdθ was an engine which the courts altogether failed to manage, or
privilege. gθ far failed as to render reformation of manners by such means
absolutely hopeless : yet any interference of the temporal courts
was resented and warded off until the evil was irremediable,
because a clerk stripped of the reality of his immunities, but
retaining all the odium with which they had invested him,
would have no chance of justice in a lay court. Thus on a
small stage was reproduced the result which the policy of the
papacy brought about in the greater theatre of ecclesiastical
politics. The practical assertion that, except by the court of
Rome, there should be no reformation, was supplemented by an
acknowledgment of the evils that were to be reformed, and of
the incapacity of the court of Rome to cure them : there popes
and councils toiled in vain; they could bear neither the evils
Vitaiityof of the age nor their remedies. Strange to say, some part of
the mischief of the spiritual jurisdiction survived the Reforma-
tion itself, and enlarged its scope as well as strengthened its
operation by the close temporary alliance between the church
and the crown. To this the English church owes the vexatious
procedure of the ecclesiastical tribunals and the consequent
reaction which gave so much strength to Puritanism : nay
Puritanism was itself leavened with the same influences, and
instead of struggling with the evils of the system which it
attacked, availed itself of the same weapons, met a like failure,
-sιx.j Clerical Influence. 387
and yielded to a like reaction. But on this point, as has been
said before, it is useless to dogmatise ; and no mere theory,
however consistent and perfect in itself, can either insure its
own realisation or prove itself applicable to different ages and
stages of growth.